Taking a Look at the Blue Jays Biggest Hit of the 2021 Season

The 2021 Toronto Blue Jays were an offensive juggernaut. Despite not making the postseason, the team ended with a run differential of +183. That was good enough for fifth in all of major league baseball this season, and is also the highest run differential by a team that didn’t make the playoffs since the 2003 Seattle Mariners.

With the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien, and Teoscar Hernandez, the ball club was capable of a big hit at almost any moment. And despite all those big names at the top of the lineup, the biggest hit of the Blue Jays’ 2021 season came off the bat of Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

It was the evening of September 3rd. The Oakland Athletics were in town for Game 1 of a three-game series. Things got off to a rough start, and before long, it was 8-2 for Oakland and the game looked all but over. That is, until the Blue Jays had an offensive resurgence in the eight inning. After Vladimir Guerrero Jr. brought home Breyvic Valera with a single, Alejandro Kirk drew a based loaded walk, which brought Gurriel Jr. to the plate. With the score now 8-4 at this point, and the bases still loaded, a homerun would tie the game. Then, like it was straight out of a movie, Gurriel Jr. drove Yusmeiro Petit’s 84 MPH offering deep and gone to left field, and the Rogers Centre 15,000 quickly sounded like 50,000.

With the game now tied 8-8, the Blue Jays bullpen surrendered a two-run home run to Mark Canha in the top of the 9th inning that quickly erased the Blue Jays’ dramatic comeback.

Then, in the bottom half of the 9th inning, after Valera and Springer had each reached base, Marcus Semien drove a dagger into the heart of his former team with a 3-run walk-off home run.

Without Gurriel Jr’s dramatic grand slam in the bottom of the 8th inning, Marcus Semien and the Blue Jays wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to walk off the A’s.

Coming into this game vs. Oakland, Toronto was sitting 5.0 games behind the second Wild Card spot. This September 3rd game vs. the Athletics, though, was the second of a eight-game win streak for the Blue Jays that catapulted them back into Wild Card contention.

Without Gurriel Jr’s grand slam to tie the game vs. Oakland and set the stage for Marcus Semien’s walk-off in the ninth inning, the Blue Jays eight-game win streak never would have happened.

Lourdes Gurriel Jr’s grand slam vs. Oakland in early September was the Toronto Blue Jays’ biggest hit of the 2021 season.