After the Oakland A鈥檚 exploded for six runs in the first inning, there was really only one thing left for the 38,797 in attendance at the Rogers Centre to look forward to: Would Vladimir Guerrero Jr. give them something to cheer about?
The resurgent slugger had a chance, as the Blue Jays rallied for three runs in the eighth and brought Guerrero to the plate with two on, one out and the tying run on deck, but it wasn’t to be. He hit a first-pitch sinker hard on the ground to shortstop for an inning-ending double-play. The Jays never threatened again and lost 8-4 to the A’s on Sunday, the last game a team from Oakland will ever play in Toronto. The Athletics are relocating to Sacramento next year as part of a planned 2028 move to Las Vegas.
That double-play ball capped an 0-for-4 day and ended his career-high-tying 22-game hit streak, but it didn’t take away from the history-making run Guerrero had been on, having put up numbers over the past month that hadn’t been seen in generations.
The streak hit 20 games with an exclamation point in Thursday’s win over the Baltimore Orioles. The 25-year-old Guerrero doubled in the first inning and later added a triple and a home run, putting him in some pretty select company.
“He’s as good as anyone right now, really,”聽 Jays manager John Schneider said after that big night. “He’s in a really good spot of swinging at pitches that he should swing at, laying off tough pitches, but I think just the way he approaches every single at-bat is what goes unnoticed a little bit.
“You’re watching a really great player figure some (stuff) out right now.”
Blue Jays President and CEO Mark Shapiro met with the media this week 鈥 for the first time since
Over the first 20 games of the streak, Guerrero posted 37 hits including 10 home runs, 11 doubles and a triple. He walked 11 times against only seven strikeouts.
That combination聽鈥 at least 35 hits, 10 doubles, 10 home runs and 10 walks over a 20-game span聽鈥 hadn’t been done since before Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in 1947. Only four players had ever done it: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Rogers Hornsby.
Those top-tier Hall of Famers, now joined by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
At .507, Guerrero had the highest batting average of the group over their 20 games of ridiculousness and the second-highest on-base plus slugging percentage (1.671 to Hornsby’s 1.745).
The fact that the A’s held him to three singles聽鈥 two Friday night, one Saturday 鈥 is admirable. Guerrero hadn’t gone three games without an extra-base hit since before the all-star break until Sunday’s 0-fer.
He wound up batting .494 over the 22 games, and the 40 hits over that stretch have pulled him up to second in the American League in that category for the season, trailing only Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr.
“Great,”聽 Guerrero said with a smile when聽 聽asked how it felt to be so locked in at the plate over such a long period. “Every time you (come to the ballpark) you want to feel that way ...I felt great for 22 games.”
Spencer Horwitz had a front-row seat to the historic performance. He was in the on-deck circle when Guerrero was at the plate for eight of the last 10 games of the streak.
“It was unbelievable,”聽 Horwitz said after going 0-for-3 with a walk on Sunday. “He was using the whole field, he was walking, more home runs than strikeouts, too. Just the plate discipline, the power, the contact, it was off the charts.”
Ten home runs against seven strikeouts over the course of the streak really stood out to Guerrero.
“That made me feel good,” he said after Sunday’s game. “I worked (very hard) for that and that made me feel very happy.”
As his team faded out of the playoff race and then sold at the trade deadline, Guerrero has worked his way back into the upper echelon of big-league hitters, a place he hadn’t been since his near-MVP season in 2021.
Even after a tough Sunday, Guerrero sits in the top five in the AL in batting average, on-base, hits and doubles and among the top 10 in OPS, slugging percentage, total bases, walks and extra-base hits.
“I’ve seen Vlad do some cool things over the years,” said Schneider, who also managed Guerrero at a couple of minor-league stops going back to 2017. “That stretch right there is pretty high up there.”
That stretch has also spotlighted the fact that the clock is ticking on Guerrero’s future with the Blue Jays. He’s a free agent after next season and as his numbers rise, so does his price tag.
The front office’s top priority over the next two months must be to get his signature on a long-term contract.
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