Guerrero Jr. jumpstarts Blue Jays to win over Rays as slugger starts to turn corner

If you’ve been watching closely, the signs that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is turning the corner after an extended cool spell have been there over the past week or so.

Check out this sampling of swings, beginning with a third-inning double Friday night at the Texas Rangers in which he turned around a 90.7 m.p.h. sinker from Dane Dunning and lined it 411 feet at 107.7 m.p.h. off the centre-field wall.

Here’s a fourth-inning base hit Saturday at 111.4 m.p.h. off a 92.9 m.p.h. sinker down and away from John King.

This is a first-inning double also ripped at 111.4 m.p.h. Sunday against a 92.4 m.p.h. cutter down and in from Martin Perez.

Finally, some deliverance for the Toronto Blue Jays slugger in Wednesday’s 5-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays when he turned on Drew Rasmussen’s 95.5 m.p.h. four-seamer and launched it 363 feet at 98.3 m.p.h. for career home run No. 100.

Notice a pattern?

Each swing did damage on a pitch in the bottom third of the strike zone, the area where opponents most often try to attack him and where contact regularly produces the groundballs that have become such a frequent talking point.

If Guerrero starts crushing there, well, good luck pitchers.

“He can hit any ball really hard,” said interim manager John Schneider. “Before he’s a good power hitter, he’s a really good hitter. It’s just a matter of understanding what a team is doing to you and making the proper adjustments. He’s got to see what their approach is. It was the same after the homer. But it’s going to come with Vlad. He’s that talented to where whether it’s a line drive, on the ground or in the air, it’s going to come.”

The homer was his first longball since Aug. 30 and second in the past 26 games, a span in which he’s batted .261/.303/.391. Not coincidentally, he’s been pitched down in the zone a whole lot, making it difficult to elevate the ball, which has led to some pressing, which has led to discussion about his swing decisions and all those groundballs.

Before the game, Schneider noted how when players are trying to make things happen at the plate, “those decisions get a little bit wider, if you will,” and that’s why he wanted to see Guerrero “take a walk and then swing at a hanging slider and hit it out, or hit it in the gap. That’s where you kind of see that he’s back.”

Of course, making opponents pay when they’re pitching him down is another path to forcing them up in the zone, where he may end up getting those hanging sliders and taking more walks.

“It all depends on the plan that the pitchers have and the plan that I have,” Guerrero said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “Sometimes you hit a homer and you think they’re going to change the plan and then they continue to give you the same pitch.”

It’s clear that teams believe pitching him down is the way to go and with his groundball rate at 52 per cent, up nearly seven per cent from last season, opponents have contained him much better than a year ago.

Worth noting is that Guerrero is still among the 30 most productive hitters in the majors and the reason it feels like he’s having a down season is because of the heights he scaled a year ago.

Remember, if this is his floor, it’s a pretty damn elite floor.

At the same time, his MVP finalist 2021 season demonstrated just how high the ceiling is and it’s natural to think he’s going to live there on the regular. But opponents adjust, approaches change and the toll of wear-and-tear is different, which is why there’s variance in the performance of virtually all players from year-to-year.

Nothing is static in baseball.

“His natural path works well with four-seamers up in the zone and when it comes to hitting sinkers or down and in, you want to think more of an inside-out type of swing,” said Blue Jays hitting coach Guillermo Martinez. “He works on that. That’s something he worked on last year for the first time and that’s how he was able to elevate a lot of balls. This year he’s still worked at it, but for some reason he hasn’t felt as comfortable with it. We really attacked it today and hopefully that’s a sign of good things to come.”

Guerrero’s 28th homer of the season gave the Blue Jays (81-62) a 1-0 lead in the first inning and jumpstarted them to a third win over four outings versus the Rays (79-63) to remain atop the wild-card standings. The Seattle Mariners (80-62), 6-1 winners over San Diego, are a half-game back while Tampa Bay is now 1.5 games off the pace.

The all-star first baseman also brought home the game’s second run with a fielder’s choice in the second – on a slider belt-high but well off the plate – and Bichette immediately followed with an RBI single that made it 3-0. Santiago Espinal in the fourth and Raimel Tapia in the sixth added RBI singles that pushed the edge to 5-0.

With those two swings, Guerrero found a way to deliver some production on a night the Rays got no closer to the heart of the plate than the edges of the strike zone.

“Ideally you don’t want to swing at their pitches. (Guerrero) knows if there’s a guy that’s throwing down and in on him, the job is to see it up and push him out and over,” said Martinez. “I always say that you have to understand the start of the pitch to understand that start of the swing. If it’s a four-seamer, you want to get a little bit above it. If it’s more of sinker, then you have to stay closed and stay inside it. When he’s consistent doing that, he’s very dangerous.”

The offence was plenty for Ross Stripling, who continued his remarkable season with another 6.1 innings of tremendous baseball, keeping the Rays under his thumb throughout. He allowed three hits, one of them a Harold Ramirez homer that opened the seventh, and left before facing nemesis Manuel Margot, who doubled in the second, a third time.

Stripling has now made 16 starts since taking Hyun Jin Ryu’s spot in the rotation, posting a 2.47 ERA in 87.1 innings, allowing only 12 walks and 65 hits with 73 strikeouts. He’s gone at least six innings in eight of those outings, including each of his past six starts, and if not for his emergence, the Blue Jays wouldn’t be charging toward the post-season right now.

“I’m proud of the way that I’ve competed and taken an opportunity and ran with it,” said Stripling. “I’ve done that in my career before, but this one feels a little bit more special – it’s the AL East, we’re in a playoff run, the team really needed me when we lost Hyun Jin. Just happy that the coaching staff and front office gave me the runway to take off and then proud of myself for taking advantage of it.”

Guerrero, in his own way, is trying to do the same thing, faced with little to attack in his happy zones from stingy opposition pitchers. He conceded that he was anxious to hit homer No. 100, getting a little bit aggressive at times, and that when he connected, a feeling of “finally, I got it,” crossed his mind. “It feels great,” he added and it will only get better if this is an immediate springboard to many more.