Blue Jays takeaways: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is getting it done with the glove

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This article was published 07/05/2021 (1931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 10-4 loss in Houston on Friday:

Could there be gold in that glove? Probably not yet, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put on a show defensively in Friday night’s opener in Houston.

It started in the second inning, when Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker hit a little dribbler up the first-base line. Pitcher Ross Stripling went to get it, but only had time to flip it to the Blue Jays first baseman from his glove. Guerrero snatched it out of mid-air with his bare hand to get Tucker before he got to the bag.

In the third, Yuliesky Gurriel, brother of Lourdes, was on first base when Carlos Correa hit a ground ball right down the line. Guerrero snapped it up on a short hop, stepped on first and made a perfect throw to Bo Bichette, over the runner, in plenty of time for Bichette to put the tag on Gurriel.

The next inning saw Martin Maldonado hit a sky-high pop-up into the girders of Minute Maid Park. Guerrero found the ball in the maze of green metal and stayed with it as it took him back toward the first-base bag. By the time the ball came down, Guerrero was almost straddling the bag, bracing himself against Myles Straw who had to work hard to both stay on his feet and hold Vlad up at the same time.

The best of the bunch came in the fifth, when Correa hit a line drive to the right side. Guerrero went way up, leaping and stretching as high as he could, and came down with the baseball.

It was a big night defensively for Guerrero, who continues to look more and more comfortable at first base.

• Jays’ play of the night: Houston had runners on the corners with one out in the sixth inning when Michael Brantley hit a laser to left field at 97 miles per hour. With the wall at Minute Maid Park just 315 feet from home plate in left, it’s only slightly deeper than Fenway Park, so the ball got on Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in a big hurry, so much so that he had to leave the ground to get it.

Flat-footed and with zero momentum toward home plate, Gurriel uncoiled that big right arm and threw an 85-m.p.h. seed to Danny Jansen, who caught it on the fly, in plenty of time to put the tag on Straw, Houston’s fastest baserunner.

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It was Gurriel’s third outfield assist this season, matching his total from last year.

• Looking for more: The Jays’ pitching rotation is starting to get healthy, with the return of Hyun-Jin Ryu from the injured list Thursday giving them four real starters. Now there’s a need for them to provide some innings to take the heat off a bullpen that ranks third in the major leagues in innings pitched.

Ross Stripling couldn’t do that Friday, when a bat-around second inning drove up his pitch count to the extent that he couldn’t make it out of the fourth inning.

The right-hander gave up a two-run homer to Correa in that fateful second, but still had two outs and nobody on after throwing only 14 pitches to that point. It took him five more hitters — and 21 more pitches — to nail down that third out, which came on a very generous strike call on a 2-2 pitch to Yordan Alvarez right after Stripling had walked Alex Bregman with the bases loaded.

Stripling had real trouble putting hitters away over the course of his 3 2/3 innings of work, running the count full to seven of the 19 batters he faced and needing 82 pitches to record just 11 outs.

With his struggles, it’s fair to debate whether Stripling should stay in the rotation for the next turn through, especially with Nate Pearson looking healthy at Triple-A, but the Jays aren’t quite sure what they’ve got in the fifth spot right now, never mind Stripling’s fourth spot.