With 1st '25 HR out of the way, Vladdy ready for takeoff

TORONTO -- By the time Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was done with watching his first home run of 2025 crash into the second deck, done with the choreography of his trot around the bases and done with the dugout celebrations, he stood exhausted and relieved.

“It’s about time, Vladimir!" George Springer yelled down the dugout after sliding the home run jacket over Guerrero’s shoulders and smacking his helmet.

Vladdy, after 27 games without a home run stretching back to last season, agreed.

“About [expletive] time!” Guerrero yelled back, beaming.

This was a Guerrero classic, the moment he and the Blue Jays have been waiting for all April and the exclamation point on a 3-1 win. Spencer Strider’s devastating slider doesn’t end up in the bleachers often, but this one caught too much of the plate and Guerrero launched it 412 feet to left field. He held the high finish, enjoyed the show for a few steps up the first-base line and flipped his bat down into the dirt.

“That was nice … That was nice,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said, smiling. “Hopefully that gets him going. He’s been close. He’s been swinging the bat really well and got a hanger there, 3-2. That’s what we’ve been missing a little bit.”

Guerrero has felt just a bit off all season, driving plenty of rockets to right-center field, but never truly turning on one. This was his best swing of the season, though, and the type of swing that strikes fear into the hearts of opposing pitchers looking down their schedules to find the Blue Jays coming. It’s taken some time, but when Guerrero truly gets rolling, he’s a freight train.

Vladdy can also be the master of deflection when it comes to his own moments. This fits the role of a leader well at times, and when he was asked about his first home run, he downplayed it as just another moment in another game. The win was the important part, Guerrero said, but he kept coming back to a point we’ve heard from many of his teammates and the coaching staff in recent weeks.

“Obviously, we’re playing good ball right now,” Guerrero said through a club interpreter, “but the key here is that we are together in this. Since the time we get to the clubhouse, we’re very united together, and the chemistry is very good right now.”

The fancy stats color in the story with Vladdy -- and still matter -- but he’s still a player who can be captured so well by the eye test. A loose, joyful Vladdy is the best version of him, violently uncoiling on pitches like a kid in the backyard. You can see it so clearly through your screen, that personality pouring out. It’s part of what makes him the $500-million man and the face of this franchise, maybe forever.

Guerrero was all the offense the Blue Jays needed Wednesday, singling home Bo Bichette in the third, too, to open the scoring. They didn’t need much else after a brilliant performance from Chris Bassitt, who has kicked the doors down this season and leads all qualified pitchers with a 0.77 ERA. He struck out 10 over his five shutout innings, giving him 31 through 23 1/3 innings. It’s the best we’ve seen Bassitt pitch.

It was one of the best pitching performances we’ve ever seen from the Blue Jays’ staff as a whole, too. The Blue Jays' pitchers struck out 19 Braves batters, breaking the club record set on August 25, 1998 by Roger Clemens, who mowed down all 18 by himself.

Vladdy, once again, was happy to pile the praise on his teammates.

“Bassitt, wow,” Guerrero said. “He gives you all he has. I always say that he has my respect, especially because he’s been dealing with some soreness in his neck and he keeps going out there and giving all he has. It was an unbelievable performance.”

Too often in the early weeks of the season, great pitching performances were either wasted or turned into unnecessary nailbiters by an offense that still hadn’t woken up. Guerrero can do that all by himself, and as we’ve seen before with Vladdy, it can only take one big swing for the dam to burst.