© Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
Despite Bloody Hand, Blue Jays' Guerrero Clubs 3 Home Runs vs. Yankees
Apparently you can be too nasty.
Ask Blue Jays starter José Berríos, who allowed six runs on Opening Day and recorded just a single out.
“I was trying to be too perfect, too nasty,” he said afterwards.
In Wednesday’s 6-4 Blue Jays win, it was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who looked nasty, but for all the right reasons. The 23-year-old slugger gave his starting pitcher some confidence when he cranked a wall-scraping homer to center in the first inning.
With that one-run edge, Berríos could breathe a little bit. He diced the Yankees’ Josh Donaldson with a beauty of a changeup, and looked more and more like himself as the game progressed, spinning his breaking ball in near-perfect spots.
And the right-hander got some additional run support in the third inning thanks to Guerrero yet again. After getting stepped on while reaching for a bounced throw at first base, Guerrero got bandaged up and stood in for his second at-bat as Bo Bichette shuffled off second base.
Yankees starter Gerrit Cole went right at Guerrero’s hands with a 98-mph fastball, but the kid was ready. The pitch was off the plate inside, but Guerrero whipped his bat around and smoked the ball 427 feet to left-center field for a no-doubt home run.
Through the first two games of the series, Toronto was 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position. So, when Guerrero—who got a hat tip from Cole after his third hit—single-handedly got the scoring started, some smiles returned to the Blue Jays dugout.
Those smiles evaporated quickly, though, when the Yankees raged back by clubbing back-to-back homers, then tied things up with an RBI double by DJ LeMahieu.
With both starters gone, the game pivoted to a battle of the bullpens—a fight the Yankees typically win nine times out of 10. But Wednesday proved to be an exception, as George Springer channeled the boos from Yankee Stadium into energy at the plate, lashing a go-ahead single in the seventh.
Guerrero—the game’s undisputed MVP—then outdid himself in the eighth inning. Facing elite set-up man Jonathan Loáisiga, Guerrero turned on a sinker and ripped the longest home run of the night. The blast, 114.4 mph off the bat, settled 443 feet in the bleachers, capping off a god-like 4-for-4, four RBI evening.
The win wasn’t without some serious consequences, though. In the sixth inning, Blue Jays outfielder Teoscar Hernández left the game after aggravating his side area with a big swing. The team called it “left side discomfort,” and Hernández will undergo further evaluation.
