Blue Jays take-aways: Guerrero’s longest big-league homer not enough in loss to Royals

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This article was published 15/04/2021 (1670 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Thursday’s Blue Jays-Royals game:

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has reached base safely in every game in this young season, but he took it to another level during the Blue Jays’ 7-5 loss in Kansas City on Thursday night.

The 22-year-old slugger came into the game batting a robust .390, and improved his average to .413 by hitting a series of absolute rockets.

He flied to right in his first trip but hit a missile his second time up — 113.9 miles per hour off the bat to the gap in left-centre — for a double, his third of the season. Next time up, with the Blue Jays down 7-0, Guerrero came to the plate with Bo Bichette at first and nobody out, and lined a single to right, eventually scoring a run.

The piece de resistance was in the seventh, though, when Guerrero got all the way into a hanging slider from Kyle Zimmer. He belted it 456 feet, the longest home run he has hit in his big-league career, getting the Blue Jays back within two runs of the Royals.

A pair of two-out singles brought Guerrero to the plate with two out in the top of the ninth but he was put behind the eight-ball when a 1-1 fastball that was well outside was called a strike, and wound up swinging through a slider to end the game.

Hear him Roark: Tanner Roark lost his spot in the Jays’ rotation, despite the fact that pitchers have been dropping like flies for the past two weeks.

When Ross Stripling couldn’t answer the bell on Wednesday, T.J. Zeuch was given the start despite Roark being fully rested. Zeuch had been the scheduled starter for Thursday’s series opener in Kansas City, and Roark was passed over for that one, too, as Anthony Kay was called up.

When Kay got knocked around, with very little help from the defence behind him, Roark finally got his second opportunity to pitch this season, coming out of the bullpen for the first time in nearly three years.

Roark wasn’t immediately successful, giving up an RBI double to the first hitter he faced, Hanser Alberto, a couple of pitches after Alberto hit a fly ball about half a mile down the left field line that was foul by inches. The veteran righty then walked the nine-hitter and Whit Merrifield followed with a line drive that went right through the hands of Cavan Biggio at third to score two runs. It was scored an error, and the ball got a good piece of Biggio’s bare right hand, causing him to leave the game a couple of innings later.

It looked as though Roark might get beat up to save the rest of the pitching staff, but he settled down and got a fly ball and a strikeout to end the third, then came back out to deliver two perfect innings.

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Unhappy birthday: Jays catcher Danny Jansen is off to a terrible start to the season, coming into Thursday’s game 2-for-22 with a negative OPS+, but he came to the park in Kansas City not only celebrating his 26th birthday but at the stadium where he made his major-league debut back in 2018.

There was no tonic to be had, though, either in the ballpark or because of the birthday. Jansen lined out to left in his first at-bat, struck out in his second, and popped up a 2-2 slider to shallow centre as his average dropped to .080.

Jansen’s issue really seems to be that he’s been too pull-happy for too long. He’s rolled over on pitches on the outer half of the plate instead of going with the pitch the other way and popped up pitches down the middle because it appears as though he’s trying to yank them down the line.

Jansen has shown to be a very good defensive catcher, but it’s his bat that brought him to the major leagues. The fact that Alejandro Kirk pinch-hit for him in the ninth — and singled to bring the tying run to the plate — shows that Jansen’s hold on the starting job is getting tenuous.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness