The Blue Jays lineup has looked dangerous this spring

It took Daulton Varsho all of two pitches Friday to have Blue Jays fans dreaming how dangerous this Blue Jays’ lineup could be. 

After missing the first week of spring as a part of his recovery from rotator cuff surgery, Varsho made his spring training debut Friday against the Tigers and promptly smashed a towering solo home run in the first inning of Toronto’s win.

Four pitches later, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. crushed a ball 394 feet to center field to give Toronto a 2-0 lead. And while those back-to-back jacks came in an exhibition game, they showed how different things could be for Toronto’s lineup this year. 

Varsho, Guerrero homers show power of Toronto’s lineup

 While it’s clear that the Blue Jays still have some question marks at the bottom of their lineup, it’s also clear that the top of the lineup is set and ready to mash. Between Bo Bichette, Guerrero, Andrés Giménez, Varsho and Anthony Santander, the Blue Jays have an intimidating top of the lineup that has a good blend of power, contact and speed. 

Varsho’s home run on Friday was the perfect example of what he can bring to the batter’s box. Although he’s never hit better than .246 in a single season, Varsho hits well against right-handed pitching (.720 OPS against righties) and he can punish mistakes, like he did on Friday when he sent out a Reese Olson pitch that caught too much of the plate. 

The presence of Guerrero will also help the rest of those hitters (and vice versa), as pitchers will look to avoid facing Guerrero with hitters on base. But, as Friday showed, he can still make a difference even when the bases are empty. 

Guerrero crushed a hanging slider from Olson 394 feet to center field for his first spring training home run. It left his bat at 106.1 mph, which marks one of the hardest hit balls this spring. 

It’s always dangerous to extrapolate too much from exhibition results, but all signs so far have pointed toward Toronto’s lineup having a strong season after it had a .241 batting average last year.

And it wasn't all just home runs on Friday. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Toronto's offense put up eight runs on seven hits and sent 10 batters to the plate. Again, this all comes with the caveat of spring training, but that long inning provided even more reinforcement that the Blue Jays' offense could be a force this season.

This roster is by no means perfect (or even complete), but it’s becoming clear that the top of their lineup is poised to be one of MLB’s best.