In an era of juiced baseballs, nuclear-armed pitchers, and compensation practices that reward the players who hit pitches hardest and farthest with little concern for how often their all-or-nothing swings miss them entirely, home run milestones don’t mean what they once did.
Consider that in 2011, when Jose Bautista led MLB with 43 home runs, 68 players finished the season with 20 or more. A decade later, with a month remaining in the 2021 season, there are already 81 players sitting on 20 or higher.
But while it’s more common for the Ryan McMahon’s and Mike Yastrzemski’s of the world to hit 20 bombs these days, it’s still considerably difficult to rack up 40 or above. An average of only 4.8 players per year surpassed 40 over the 10 seasons from 2010 through 2019. Ten players did it in 2019, but only three did in 2018, and five in 2017. And as things stand today, there is a field of just eight players with at least 33 homers this season that have a legitimate shot at 40-plus. It’s still rarefied air.
And that the Toronto Blue Jays roster two of those eight players, including Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who snuck his 40th over Yankee Stadium’s right-field wall Monday, and Marcus Semien, who hit his 36th and 37th in an 8-0 victory over the New York Yankees, is a felicitous reminder of how many extreme positive outcomes the club has enjoyed this season. And how many it stands to waste.
Robbie Ray is the American League’s Cy Young frontrunner; Guerrero and Semien could each finish top-five in MVP voting; Alek Manoah will receive rookie-of-the-year consideration; Teoscar Hernandez might win his second consecutive Silver Slugger trophy; Bo Bichette trails only two players (Guerrero one of them) in hits; Jordan Romano’s 2.62 xERA is top-12 among MLB relievers; Steven Matz posted the lowest ERA of any pitcher to throw at least 20 innings in the month of August.
And yet, the Blue Jays need to continue winning at a .650 clip over their final 26 games to reach 91 wins and give themselves a realistic chance of sneaking into the postseason as the American League’s second wild card team. The good news is they’ve been winning at a .700 clip over their last 10 and remain undefeated in September. The sobering news is it will still take a 17-9 run between now and the end of the season to get up over that 90-win threshold.
It’s incredible, improbable, unbelievable that the Blue Jays are in this position in spite of all that’s gone right, including the fact the club’s top-8 MLB-wide in both runs scored and against, producing a +136 run differential. Scoff at run differential all you want, but just look at the standings. The Blue Jays are MLB’s only team with a triple-digit positive differential that isn’t leading its division or, in the case of the 86-51 Los Angeles Dodgers, within a game of that lead. Of the seven teams to have scored at least 100 more runs than its allowed, the 74-62 Blue Jays are the only one sitting on fewer than 79 wins.
The Blue Jays are simply a good team. You see it in explosive bursts like the last 9 games; you see it in long stretches like the club’s rollicking return-to-Toronto homestand a month ago; you see it in the fact it doesn’t have a losing record in any month this season. It’s a dangerous, talented team no contender wants to test over a small playoff series sample. It’s a team that ought to end the season enjoying a better fate than it probably will.
But it’s a team that’s hitters have struggled too often with runners in scoring position towards the end of tight games, that’s relievers have blown too many late leads, that’s down-roster depth has been too ill-suited to replace the production of injured or slumping up-roster stars. It’s a team that has been really good at its crux, but just bad enough on the margins to potentially sink its season.
“I think just having that killer instinct, realizing what’s at stake,” Semien said of what it will take to sustain Toronto’s current hot streak going forward. “We just want to play our game. Everybody works hard at their craft. We’re facing a good opponent over there. So, they can turn it on as well. We just need to stay focused on what we’re doing. Obviously, we’ve been scoring a lot of runs, throwing the ball well. And if we can put all those things together, we can go on a run.”
Semien’s first homer of the day came early, as Yankees starter Jameson Taillon let a first-inning slider catch just a little too much of the plate and watched the Blue Jays second baseman shoot it over the left-field wall. And his second came late, as Randal Grichuk, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and Jake Lamb walked the bases loaded against Brooks Kriske in the eighth before Semien stepped in and drove the first pitch he saw — an elevated fastball — towards those same left-field seats.
MARCUS SEMIEN GRAND SLAM
His 37th home run of the season AND his second of the day. #BlueJaysOnSN pic.twitter.com/X76wQ5GK2B
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 6, 2021
It was Semien’s fifth bomb in his last five games, each one pushing the value higher and higher on what ought to be a lengthy, nine-figure free agent contract this coming offseason. With 37 homers on the year, Semien hasn’t only surpassed Aaron Hill for the most in a single season by a Blue Jays middle infielder; he’s positioned himself to become only the fifth second baseman in MLB history to reach 40.
Most home runs in a single season by a second baseman
That’s an unlikely feat in any era. Robinson Cano has never done it. Neither has Jose Ramirez, Max Muncy, or Jose Altuve. But Semien now has 26 games to hit the three he needs for 40, and would need only three beyond that to tie Davey Johnson’s MLB single-season record for a second baseman. Might we mention that nearly 75 per cent of Semien’s remaining games will be played at Rogers Centre, Yankee Stadium, or Camden Yards — each among MLB’s top-10 home run environments. Look out.
“Anything’s possible if you get hot,” Semien said. “I think that everybody just has a good feel for their mechanics right now. For me, when my mechanics and timing are sound, I think I see the ball better and I’m more confident. And I’m seeing that with everybody in the cage when they work. This time of year, you really get a good feel for what you’re doing. And you see the results more.”
Guerrero took his own pen to the Blue Jays record books Monday, becoming the 10th in franchise history to reach 40 homers, and by far the youngest. That the ball came off his bat at only 96.5-m.p.h. (his second-softest hit homer of the season) and, with 347-feet of projected distance, would have been a homer in just six MLB ballparks is context that will only matter on the day. It won’t show up on his Baseball-Reference page when someone is looking back on his career decades from now and sees that first 40-homer season at the age of 22.
#PLAKATA No.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. becomes the youngest player to hit 40 home runs in a season in @BlueJays franchise history. #BlueJaysOnSN pic.twitter.com/Eoguxgsano
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 6, 2021
“I watched a guy in Oakland do it for three years in a row in Khris Davis. And he had some huge months. He had like 12 homers in a month two times in a season. But it seems like Vladdy’s just been steady the whole time,” Semien said. “He takes his singles. But he’ll take you deep, too. He’s been so consistent this whole entire year. Even when people say he’s in a slump, he’s still probably hitting over .250 which is still good. He’s so talented. And he knows his swing, too. It’s scary.”
Somehow, those two big swings were all the Blue Jays would get against Taillon for most of the day, as the right-hander settled in, overcame spotty defence behind him in the second and third innings, and kept Toronto hitters off-balance with a steady mix of four-seamers, sinkers, sliders, and curveballs.
Toronto’s next hit didn’t come until the seventh when Gurriel shot a first-pitch fastball right back up the middle, cashing Hernandez — he swiped second following a leadoff walk — with his team’s third run. Gurriel, as you no doubt noticed, is on one of his streaks again, hitting .360 (27-for-75) with a 1.007 OPS over his last 23 games. Hernandez is heating back up, too, and shot a ninth-inning Kriske heater 341-feet up the left field line for his third homer in four games.
Grab the jacket for Teo. #BlueJaysOnSN pic.twitter.com/BMfpNE8WHu
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 6, 2021
“We’re coming through with runners on a little bit more. I think that that’s something we’re going to need to do down the stretch. We’re starting to get a good feel for how teams are attacking us, especially with runners in scoring position. So, we’ll have to pay more attention to that,” Semien said. “I think Lourdes getting hot and doing what he’s been doing has been big for our lineup. Teoscar, as well. Just because it makes us that much more deep. And you even look at the bottom of the order, the catchers are hot right now. Things are just going well right now.”
Meanwhile, Hyun Jin Ryu contributed a vintage performance, allowing only three hits while striking out six over a half-dozen scoreless. Working with some of the firmest stuff he has in a while — the 34-year-old’s four-seamer sat 91.8-m.p.h. on the day, two clicks above his season average, and hit 94 — Ryu used fastballs and cutters to command the inner half of the plate against New York’s right-handed-heavy lineup, which helped his changeup generate long, roll-over swings when he located it away.
That’s how Ryu produced eight outs on the ground vs. only one in the air, while using his four-seamer and cutter as unlikely out pitches on four of his six strikeouts. As he walked off the mound after freezing Joey Gallo with a huge curveball — his 80th pitch of the afternoon — for the final out of the sixth, Ryu looked a lock to go seven at least.
But back in the dugout, Ryu told Montoyo and his pitching coach, Pete Walker, that he was experiencing forearm tightness after throwing a series of sliders, a pitch he doesn’t typically use, throughout his outing. And that was the end of that. Ryu exited the game, while Montoyo turned to Trevor Richards, Tim Mayza, and Adam Cimber, who recorded the final nine outs with little trouble.
“I felt a little tightness around my arm. So, I thought it was a good time to just shut down for today to make sure that it doesn’t aggravate or make it any worse,” Ryu said through interpreter Jun Sung Park. “I think with the slider, I actually saw from [Robbie] Ray how he could succeed with just those two pitches: a very good fastball and a slider. So, I thought it would be an appropriate time to use it. It’s one of those pitches that I had in my pocket. I actually used a couple of them in my last outing and found some good results from it. So, I thought it would be a good time to try to use it.”
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Ryu’s line confirms that theory, but the resulting arm soreness is an unfortunate consequence. The veteran left-hander’s situation will bear monitoring going forward as the Blue Jays lack the luxury of an upcoming off-day with which to steal him extra rest. If anything, Montoyo will need all the innings he can get from his starters this week, with Saturday’s doubleheader in Baltimore looming.
Still, Ryu was confident he wouldn’t have any issues completing his typical routine ahead of his next start and said he wouldn’t be going for any further testing on the area. That’d be very good news for the Blue Jays, especially as George Springer appears to be reaching the limits of how far he can push himself through a left knee injury he’s been playing on for a week. Monday, the 31-year-old fouled a ball off the same leg, collapsed in the box repeatedly following painful swings, and was lifted from the game after three plate appearances.
“He’s grinding it out. He’s trying to play for us,” Montoyo said. “And, of course, he’s not 100 per cent. The funny thing about it, he got hit where he didn’t have protection. So, we’re going to call it a knee contusion right now. He should be fine. It’s going to be day-to-day for sure now.”
And we’ve been down that day-to-day road with Springer before, haven’t we? Based purely on how he looked Monday, it would seem extremely unlikely he plays Tuesday when the series resumes. But crazier things have happened. The entire Blue Jays season is a gigantic collection of crazy things happening, from the good, to the bad, to the unbelievable. And all they have to do over the next 26 is make something crazy happen again.
