A superstar slugger cannot be relied on like the take-over-a-game greats in other sports. You can't get him the ball again and again. You can't give him more minutes at the expense of the end of the bench. He needs other guys before and after him in the order to make his contributions mean something. Even if he's the best hitter who ever lived, more often than not he fails at the plate. This egalitarian setup, inherent to baseball, is how Guys like Bucky Dent, David Freese, or Howie Kendrick become legends. But in Game 4 on Tuesday night, it was the richest and most famous Blue Jay who controlled the game.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been pegged for greatness since he was born during spring training of 1999, after a season in which his father hit .324 and bopped 38 homers at a mere 23 years old. A top prospect as a teenager, Guerrero the younger debuted for Toronto at age 20 and was immediately a solid big-league hitter. The next couple seasons were made weird by COVID, but he dominated in 2021 with an OPS+ of 167 that was higher than Vlad Sr. ever achieved. However, a talent like his could only carry a team so far, and the Blue Jays continued to disappoint. They missed the playoffs in 2021, lost all four of their postseason games in '22 and '23 as Vlad took a step back offensively, then wasted a resurgence as he put up a .940 OPS for a squad that finished last in the AL East. Still, the Jays believed that they needed him if they were going to do something worthwhile this decade. In April, before he could become a free agent, Toronto signed the 26-year-old to a 14-year, $500 million contract. If nothing else, Blue Jays fans could feel safe investing in Vlad shirseys.
It would be rewriting history to say that this Toronto season felt different from the start. They finished April under .500. They were eight games back in the last week of May. But right around Canada Day, everything changed. It's a little sentimental to peg things to a single hit, but here's one anyway. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., based loaded in a tie game, ejects a ball into left field to score two runs and kick off a four-game home sweep of the Yankees that vaulted the Jays into the division lead.
Vlad didn't carry the Blue Jays this year. Even if he had enjoyed a particularly mind-blowing statistical campaign, it wouldn't have been enough. Toronto succeeded much more through a lack of weaknesses than with individual standout excellence. But Guerrero. was still the guy—the one who gets the biggest cheers when the starting lineup is announced, the one whose salary number everyone knows, the one who's expected to come through in the clutch in a way that Nathan Lukes or Andrés Giménez aren't. And as the Blue Jays entered another postseason looking for, if nothing else, their first playoff win since Jose Bautista was the face of the franchise, Vlad set out to prove he could be the guy in October, too.
Guerrero had essentially done nothing in the postseason before this year. Across six games and three wild card series, he'd tallied two singles, two walks, and a double. But he wasted no time making this run special. A homer in each of his first three outings against the Yankees. Three more and an ALCS MVP in a comeback win over the Mariners. And after a couple of squibs in games that saw the Jays go down a 2-1 in the World Series, Vlad reemerged as the hero, hitting the reset button after the chaos of Game 3 to help turn this thing into a best of three, and ensure the Series will head back north.
I've never played 18 straight innings of baseball, let alone lost an 18-inning game in the World Series, so I have no idea what the Blue Jays were feeling between games. It couldn't have been good. I imagine they were exhausted, and demoralized, and badly hoping for something that could quickly wash out the bitter taste of Freddie Freeman's walk-off. In the first two innings, they were denied—the Dodgers got out to a 1-0 lead. But in the third, Guerrero came up for the second time, facing down Shohei Ohtani with a man on. The first time they matched up, the man who hit 55 home runs this season struck out Guerrero on three pitches, all of them away. This time, Ohtani was a little less careful. He fell into a 2-0 count, and that forced him back in over the plate. He went with a fastball in the low middle, and Guerrero was a little late on it, fouling off a juicy pitch. As Clayton Kershaw looked on from the bullpen like a divorced dad told to stay away from his kid's soccer game, Ohtani tried a breaking ball, higher in the zone, and Vlad Jr. pounced. He launched the ball over the left-field fence to deliver a 2-1 lead that the Jays would never surrender. After so many scoreless innings, the sigh of relief was palpable. Toronto may still lose this World Series, but not because they folded after an 18-inning heartbreak.
In baseball, hitters can't demand the ball (or the bat) when it's do or die. All they can do is be ready when their turn comes. But even with the weight of his contract, and the hopes of a nation and the pressure of outplaying all those great players in the other dugout, Vladimir Guerrero delivered, just as he's delivered all month.
