TORONTO -- One by one, the Blue Jays’ big boys are having their moments.
After Anthony Santander launched a game-tying, three-run home run Wednesday night that nearly blew the roof off Rogers Centre, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. decided it was his turn.
Guerrero launched a three-run rocket to left field in the bottom of the eighth to give the Blue Jays a 4-2 win over the Red Sox on Thursday, shaking a silent stadium to life on a night that most of Toronto had their eyes on the Maple Leafs. It was a Guerrero classic, too, one of those line drives that just refused to descend.
Vladdy stopped to enjoy the show, too. He stood in the batter’s box and watched the ball hiss through the air, took a few steps after it crashed into the bleachers and fired his bat back toward the Blue Jays’ dugout and beat his chest before turning to skip down the line.
These wins just feel different. Yes, the Blue Jays would love to coast to an 8-1 win and kick their feet up, but these comebacks bring something those “normal” wins can’t.
“I think I got punched by Pete [Walker] and Lou [Iannotti] there when Vlad hit that,” John Schneider said. “I might have pulled a calf muscle, too. It gets you going. You can flip the leverage with one swing. It’s huge. It’s nice to peck away and chip away and add on runs, but when you get a big swing like that? It goes a little further. Emotions are real. Momentum is real. When you have those big swings in the game, it feeds the energy.”
For a moment, it felt like Guerrero would try to do too much with the at-bat. He had the whole game in front of him with runners on second and third following a Bo Bichette double, but took two massive hacks to put himself in an 0-2 count. Those swings look a lot better when you make contact, though, and when Vladdy lets it rip, the ball is either going over the wall or through it.
With one swing, eight drowsy innings disappeared.
“We never give up,” Guerrero said through a club interpreter. “We never give up regardless of the score. We could be down 18-3 or whatever it is, we’re still going to go out there and compete.”
These felt like two massive wins for the Blue Jays, even if they’re just over one month into the season, because they hint at something bigger. This team came into Wednesday's game with eight losses in their last nine games, and it all felt exactly as bad as that sounds. Two wins driven by their biggest sluggers changes that feeling in an instant, though.
Just 24 hours after Schneider said that Santander was “ready to go off,” Guerrero joined the party.
These are the moments that the $500 million man needs to have. With his team stumbling out of April -- a month that once looked like it would be a roaring success -- it’s up to the stars to grab a team by its collective collar and turn things around. Guerrero always tends to find those moments, but even with all of the hard contact this season, his numbers have been fairly average.
Schneider likes to say that “As Vladdy goes, we go,” and Guerrero just keeps proving him right.
“I’m obviously feeling good right now. We’re coming off a difficult week for us and it was hard, a hard stretch,” Guerrero said. “It’s a difficult schedule, too, but we’re here right now and we’re getting better. Things are turning around, especially with us beating a team like Boston, a great team. That says a lot about us.”
It’s easy to say that momentum is real when you’re on the winning side. It can be felt, but not measured, which always makes it an uncomfortable question in the sport that measures everything. Schneider believes in it, though -- Vladdy, too -- and Thursday’s blast is exactly what it feels like if you believe in it.
“It’s big to win a series against a division opponent that’s swinging the bat pretty well. They’re good,” Schneider said. “These last two nights, though … I said it last night, that I hoped it gave us a bit of momentum. I think Vlad took that a little bit further.”
A 15-16 record on May 1 isn’t exactly as far as the Blue Jays want to go here, but it’s further than they were two days ago and the “start of something” they’ve been searching for.