Vladimir Guerrero Jr., born in Montreal and named Canada’s top baseball player by the Tip O’Neill Award in 2021, collected his 1,200th career hit and drove in five runs for the first time in more than two years as the Toronto Blue Jays routed the Cleveland Guardians 11-0 on Wednesday night in Cleveland.
Guerrero went three-for-four with a double, his eighth home run of the season and five RBIs, according to Heavy.com’s Billy Heyen and MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson, who both covered the game. He opened the night with an RBI double off the left-field wall, then added a towering three-run home run to right field in the second inning — his first homer since Aug. 8 — before closing out the game with an RBI single in the sixth, Matheson reported.
Guerrero entered the game with 1,197 hits in 4,200 career at-bats; his three-hit night pushed him to 1,200, Heyen wrote for Heavy.com. Guerrero’s five RBIs marked his first such game since June 29, 2024, according to Sportsnet’s SN Stats account, which tracked the milestone on X.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters after the game that the performance was a relief for Guerrero after a difficult season at the plate. “Everyone has been behind him,” Schneider said, according to MLB.com. “You guys know I have been behind him the entire year and will continue to be. That was a bit of a deep breath for him and a deep breath for everyone. Hopefully he can stay right there.”
Pitcher Dylan Cease also praised the swing that produced Guerrero’s home run. “Oh, that looked great,” Cease said, per MLB.com. “That was nice. That was really nice.”
Guerrero, 27, entered Wednesday’s game with 48 RBIs in 124 games this season, a steep drop from a career that has included two 100-RBI seasons and two others above 90, Heyen noted. He has yet to hit a home run at Rogers Centre this season, with all eight of his homers coming on the road.
The Blue Jays are chasing the third American League wild-card spot, and Toronto’s coaching staff has said for weeks that a single swing could be the spark that turns Guerrero’s season around, per MLB.com.
Guerrero’s father, Vladimir Guerrero Sr., a National Baseball Hall of Famer who played briefly for the Montreal Expos, finished his own career with 2,590 hits and a .318 batting average, Heyen wrote — a mark the younger Guerrero, a career .285 hitter, still has far to travel to match.
