Blue Jays: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Hits 39th Home Run in Loss

[Box Score]

Right now, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a one-man gang for the Toronto Blue Jays. Indeed, they suffered a 4-2 loss at home against the Baltimore Orioles that will serve as a crushing blow to their playoff hopes. And let’s face it: Toronto’s magic has just about run out.

Still, Guerrero Jr. hit a backside home run to momentarily cut the deficit to 3-2 late in the game. It was his 39th home run of the season, and it serves as the most home runs a Blue Jays player has hit through 130 team games since Jose Bautista in 2011.

Now that right there is just a beautiful piece of hitting. All season long, I have loved Guerrero Jr.’s willingness to use the entire field. When he’s spraying the ball gap to gap, you know that good results won’t be far behind.

It would seem that Guerrero Jr. is going to find his way to 40 home runs barring something very odd in the next few ballgames. At one point, we worried a little bit about that. Equally important, one must wonder if he has an outside chance of hitting 50 home runs if he really gets hot in the month of September.

Truly, that is going to be the storyline in the season’s final month for Toronto. How does Guerrero Jr. finish off what is probably going to be the best year of his career in his age-22 season? And now just three home runs behind Shohei Ohtani at the time of this post, can he run down the Asian sensation for the AL MVP award?

Hyun-Jin Ryu was fine in this one to start, but fell apart and one bad inning ended up being the difference in the game. Currently, the Toronto bats just aren’t getting the job done to cover the mortgage up at Rogers Center. This win by the lowly Orioles snapped their ten-game road losing streak.

Other Notes:

Toronto signed outfielder Gregory Polanco to a minor league deal, which ends his tenure in Pittsburgh, and at the time he was the longest tenured Pirate in uniform.

Furthermore, has anyone noticed the Blue Jays also rostered up Jarrod Dyson off waivers? He’s been logging at-bats the last couple games for Toronto in what seems to be a puzzling move, following up the addition of Corey Dickerson.

Danny Jansen accounted for the only other Toronto run with a home run to open scoring.