{"id":894929,"date":"2026-09-14T03:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T03:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/894929\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T03:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T03:10:21","slug":"we-can-stop-talking-about-it-guerrero-jr-sheds-massive-weight-from-shoulders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/894929\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We can stop talking about it’: Guerrero Jr. sheds massive weight from shoulders"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a> had heard the boos from the home crowd this season, specifically during the first few games of this weekend’s series at Rogers Centre.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019d tell himself it\u2019s simply part of the game and if he needed further reassurance, Guerrero Jr. would recall something his father once told him:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fans never boo a bad player.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Guerrero Jr. offered that window into his thinking on Sunday afternoon following an 8-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles and a long-overdue celebration in Toronto. It took almost an entire season and nearly a calendar year, but the first baseman finally removed a massive weight from his shoulders and gave Blue Jays fans what they\u2019d been craving.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A home run at Rogers Centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can stop talking about it,\u201d said Blue Jays manager John Schneider with a grin.<\/p>\n

The entire scene during the fifth inning created a raucous atmosphere inside the stadium. George Springer had just taken Orioles left-hander Trevor Rogers deep with a go-ahead, solo homer and then gave way to Guerrero Jr., who worked the count full.<\/p>\n

Rogers then tossed a 79-m.p.h. sweeper at the bottom of the zone, and Guerrero Jr. unleashed a long swing with a high finish before watching the ball sail into the Blue Jays\u2019 bullpen in left field, an estimated 350 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It barely scraped the fence and into the glove of bullpen catcher Matt Domian, yet Guerrero Jr. knew it was gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know my stadium,\u201d Guerrero Jr. said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “I know when I can stand at the plate, when I hit it \u2026 I saw it and thought, ‘That’s gonna be gone.'”<\/p>\n

The first baseman tossed his bat and looked toward the home dugout before making sure to savour the moment. That much was evident by his 34.14-second trot around the bases, a trip that was six seconds longer than his season\u2019s average.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After crossing home plate, Guerrero Jr. was met by Springer, who put the team\u2019s home run jacket on his back, and then ran through the dugout, receiving high-fives from teammates. The sellout crowd of 41,805 began to chant his name, and several Blue Jays implored Guerrero Jr. to take a curtain call. When he did, they went ballistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great,\u201d\u00a0Guerrero Jr. said. \u201cOur fans are always there for us. I mean, lately, it wasn’t that good (of a) reaction, but that’s okay. It\u2019s part of it, but (I feel) very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guerrero Jr.\u2019s teammates were filled with just as much joy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God, I felt everyone in the dugout just drop their shoulders and take a deep breath after that,\u201d said catcher Brandon Valenzuela. \u201cWe love the guy, Vladdy’s an amazing teammate. We were just trying to cheer him on for the rest of the year. Thank God he got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Schneider of the dugout reaction: \u201cIt looked like it was a walk-off homer. I saw (Andres) Gimenez jumping over the railing. Myself, George, Ernie (Clement), we were high-fiving. Vlad’s our guy, and it’s just nice to get that out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guerrero Jr. was appreciative of the support he had received from teammates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cThey knew, obviously, what was going on. They always told me to keep my head up, and at some point things were going to turn around, and it means a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s been a trying season for Guerrero Jr., whose homer came in Game No. 75 of the 81 regular-season contests. He now has nine this year, to go along with a .700 OPS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old said he felt a Rogers Centre homer was going to happen eventually and insisted he didn\u2019t feel pressure. Instead, he was focused on his preparation and daily routine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That paid dividends earlier on Sunday as Guerrero Jr. narrowly missed a homer in the third inning, hitting the top of the right-centre field wall for a double. The swing he unleashed on that pitch, a middle-up fastball from Rogers, showed Guerrero Jr. he was in a \u201cgood position\u201d the rest of the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As he watched from the on-deck circle when Springer clubbed his solo homer, Guerrero Jr. felt the intensity of the crowd and had to collect himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile that was happening, I was just trying to talk to myself to calm myself down, to be relaxed, to still look for a good pitch to try to hit,\u201d said Guerrero Jr.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He certainly did that, and the party continued right away when Kazuma Okamoto sent a rocket to the second deck as the Blue Jays recorded three consecutive homers for the first time since June 19, 2012, when Colby Rasmus, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion went deep against the Brewers in Milwaukee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pretty electric,\u201d said Blue Jays\u2019 right-hander Dylan Cease of Sunday\u2019s fifth inning. \u201cI’m sure that’s one of the more exciting regular-season moments that’s happened here in a really long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays are obviously focused on more than just the regular season, and the win helped them keep pace with the Cleveland Guardians, who defeated the Minnesota Twins and remain one game ahead of Toronto for the third AL wild-card spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are just 12 games remaining on the schedule, with six of those coming at home. Guerrero Jr. can\u2019t change what\u2019s already happened this year, but he does have an opportunity to entice some more positive reactions from the Rogers Centre faithful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s been times where we’ve all heard different reactions from the crowd,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cBut I think the last couple days, they were kind of behind him and wanted to see a game like that or a swing like that, or a few swings like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 with files from Sportsnet\u2019s Shi Davidi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had heard the boos from the home crowd this season, specifically during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-894929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}