Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s drought-busting home run tells a bigger story about snake-bitten season

It might have been more relief than joy for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Either way, there was no mistaking what it meant to him, his teammates and fans of the Toronto Blue Jays when his solo shot in the fifth inning finally cleared the wall in left field at Rogers Centre.

For the first time all season, Guerrero had hit a regular-season home run in Toronto. For the first time in more than a year, Blue Jays fans watched the face of the franchise go deep at home. It was a long time coming, and the reaction inside the ballpark said as much.

Guerrero stepped in against Baltimore Orioles left-hander Trevor Rogers in the bottom of the fifth inning of a tight, must-win game Sunday (Sept. 13) and worked the count full. On a 3-2 pitch, Rogers tried to sneak a 79 m.p.h. sweeper by him. Guerrero did not miss it, driving it out to left field for a home run Blue Jays fans had been waiting to see since Aug. 17, 2025 (not counting the eight in the playoffs).

Sunday’s blast felt like a release valve and after the game Guerrero said, "I hope this is a sign. I've worked really hard for this."

It also came in the middle of one of the Blue Jays most powerful sequences. George Springer started the back-to-back-to-back run with his 15th of the year. Guerrero followed with his ninth. Kazuma Okamoto capped it with his team-leading 32nd. It was the first time the Blue Jays had gone back-to-back-to-back since June 19, 2012, when Colby Rasmus, José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación pulled off the feat.

For Guerrero, though, the bigger story is not just that he finally got one it is the fact that the wait probably never should have stretched this long.

Guerrero’s season has looked worse because so many near-misses stayed in play

There is no denying that Guerrero’s season hasn't gone the way anyone would have expected. Nine home runs this deep into September should not be something to smile about. His .259/.331/.352 slash line, .093 ISO and 93 wRC+ all point to a year that has fallen short of his usual offensive standard.

But those numbers also do not fully capture how snake-bitten Guerrero has been. Earlier in the game, Guerrero hammered a ball to right-centre field that travelled 397 feet and struck high off the wall, just a foot or two shy of a home run. According to Statcast, the wind inside Rogers Centre knocked it down by 11 feet. Guerrero had essentially been robbed of a home run by the conditions in his own ballpark and it's not the first time that can be said about the results of his at-bats this season.

Guerrero has hit nine home runs, but he has also recorded 10 doubles that travelled at least 328 feet, the listed distance down the lines at Rogers Centre. Not all of those balls were automatic home runs, and every ballpark has its quirks, but some of those doubles should've counted for home runs. Guerrero has repeatedly hit balls hard enough and far enough to flirt with home run territory, only to watch them find the wrong part of the wall, the wrong angle, or the wrong conditions.

There was the April 14 drive in Milwaukee that travelled 377 feet to left-centre and would have been a home run in eight other MLB ballparks. On April 26 against the Guardians at Rogers Centre, he sent one 348 feet to right field that would have cleared the wall in eight of 30 parks.

On June 4 in Atlanta, he took Chris Sale into the right-field corner at Truist Park for a 333-foot double that would have been out in four parks.

The list kept growing as the season went on. On June 22, Guerrero sent a ball 374 feet to right-centre at Rogers Centre and watched it hit the very top of the wall. On July 18, with Joe Carter in the broadcast booth, he drove one 400 feet to straightaway centre that also struck the top of the wall. On July 31, he scorched a ball 112.4 m.p.h. that travelled 394 feet to the top of the left-centre wall at Rogers Centre, a swing that would have been a home run in 17 of 30 parks.

Then, on Sept. 2, he hit one 405 feet to left-centre at Progressive Field that again stayed in play despite being a home run in 14 parks.

If those seven doubles had cleared the fence, Guerrero would not suddenly be having an MVP-calibre season. But he would be sitting at 16 home runs instead of nine, and the conversation around his year would likely sound a lot different. He would comfortably be in double digits. He likely would have had a Rogers Centre home run long before September. Most importantly, the storyline around his power outage would not feel quite so severe.

That alternate version of Guerrero’s season would also look a lot closer to Bo Bichette’s year. Bichette entered Sunday with 16 home runs, a .263/.314/.394 slash line and a 97 wRC+. Guerrero’s actual production has been worse, but not by enough to ignore how much a handful of wall-scrapers and near-misses have changed the perception of his season.

Seven extra home runs would not erase the frustration of Guerrero’s year. His slugging percentage, OPS, ISO and wRC+ would all look better, but the expectations attached to him are higher than that. That's what happens with one of the heaviest contracts in the game. Still, a few more balls clearing the fence could have changed the way fans talked about him, and maybe even the way opponents pitched him, which would have had a spill over effect on the entire order.

That is what made Sunday’s home run feel so cathartic. Guerrero did not fix his entire season with one swing, but he did finally get the one swing Blue Jays fans had been waiting for at home.

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