TORONTO – As the angst-filled wait for George Springer’s debut with the Toronto Blue Jays continues, an intriguing thought is imagining him in the same lineup as an ascending Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
The 22-year-old’s latest emergent performance featured a grand slam off Max Scherzer in the third, a solo shot in the fifth off one of this generation’s most dominant pitchers and a two-run shot off reliever Kyle Finnegan in the seventh. His seven RBIs established a new career high as he shook off a 1-for-13 weekend against the Tampa Bay Rays to power the Blue Jays to a 9-5 victory Tuesday over the Washington Nationals.
Springer’s return to action in alternate-training site games late last week raised hopes that the star outfielder would be activated for the interleague opener. But those plans were iced temporarily after he took batting practice and ran the bases in the afternoon, with manager Charlie Montoyo saying “he feels great except [for]the running.”
That said, caution is the sensible approach, although it sounds like Springer’s return is coming soon, perhaps even as early as Wednesday night.
In his absence Guerrero, in particular, but also Bo Bichette and Randal Grichuk have done much of the heavy lifting at the plate, and dropping Springer back into the mix should turbocharge an order that also features the awakening Cavan Biggio, who had three hits, and the still-untracked Marcus Semien and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Guerrero’s at-bats against Scherzer after he hit into an inning-ending double play in the first were real tour-de-force stuff.
With the bases loaded in the third, Guerrero showed good patience until he got a pitch to drive — fouling off a slider, taking a four-seamer in, spitting on a slider just low and then launching a cookie slider middle away at 108.4 m.p.h. off the bat to centre. That erased an early 3-0 deficit.
Then, after the Blue Jays tacked on a pair of unearned runs in the fourth, Guerrero led off the fifth by taking one fastball in and another way, watching a borderline strike hit the inner edge down, spitting on a slider low and away, fouling off a changeup in a similar spot to the called strike then crushing a fastball middle away. This one left the bat at 110.5 m.p.h. to left.
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In the seventh, Finnegan put a 1-1 sinker on a middle-middle tee for Guerrero to send over the wall in right, giving him a hat trick with one laser to each field. That one was a two-run shot at 103.9 m.p.h. off the bat that put the Blue Jays up 9-5 after the Nationals had cut the Blue Jays lead to two in the top half of the frame.
The outburst came in handy on the latest bullpen day for the Blue Jays, with Trent Thornton going 2.1 innings, allowing a pair of homers to Trea Turner, followed by Tommy Milone, Anthony Castro, Tim Mayza, Joel Payamps, Tyler Chatwood and Rafael Dolis.
Crucially, Castro escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth by inducing an inning-ending double play from Victor Robles, protecting a 4-3 Blue Jays lead. The leverage only decreased from that point forward.
