Blue Jays: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. caps off stellar streak

Though Friday night’s ballgame will most likely be remembered as a disappointing and messily played contest by the Blue Jays, there was one bright spot in a generally mediocre evening.

It’s no secret, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has been nothing short of impressive since being called up earlier this season. While his season’s slash (.284/.313/.432) doesn’t stand out in a crowd, I’m sure many would agree that it doesn’t accurately reflect his performance this season.

It was during Friday night’s game, however, that Gurriel made Blue Jays history. After a moonshot in the ninth inning of Thursday night’s tilt against the Tampa Bay Rays, Gurriel responded with two more home runs Friday in the first and fourth innings.

With that, Gurriel becomes the first Blue Jays rookie to homer in three consecutive plate appearances, according to the team.  This was Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s second career multi-home run game, making him only the ninth rookie in franchise history to record multiple multi-home run games, per Sportsnet Stats.

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In other factually interesting news related to Gurriel, Jake Kaplan of the Athletic notes that Friday was the first day in which both Lourdes and his older brother Yuli (first baseman for the Houston Astros), have homered. Going even further, Yuli smashed a second homer Friday, make the Gurriels the first brothers in MLB history to record multi-homer games on the same night, according to ESPN Stats. Yuli, 34, has 10 homers this year in 540 plate appearences.

The Gurriel brothers will, for the first time, play against each other when Yuli’s Astros come to Toronto for a mid-week three game series. When asked about playing against his older brother, with whom he is incredibly close, Lourdes noted the following via Josue Peley:

"“It is going to be the first time I am going to play against him, that never happened before. So it is a little bit weird, I will see how I feel that day”Source: Sean Addis of Baseball Prospectus Toronto"

It will surely be a sight when the Gurriels meet at Rogers Centre. Lifelong best friends and their own biggest fans, the brothers will certainly have a lot of fun when it comes to the game.