Three homers are part of a bloody big night in the Bronx for Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

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This article was published 13/04/2022 (1304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK—It’s going to take a lot more than a bloody finger to knock Vladimir Guerrero Jr. out of the Blue Jays’ lineup or to stop him from being arguably the most dangerous hitter in the American League.

Guerrero sustained a gruesome injury when Aaron Hicks accidentally stepped on his right hand during the second inning of Wednesday’s 6-4 victory over the New York Yankees, and yet he still came through with his best game of the season.

The 23-year-old recorded baseball’s version of the hat trick with a three-homer performance at Yankee Stadium. It was the second time in Guerrero’s career that he went deep three times in one game. The first was April 27 last year against the Washington Nationals. He finished Wednesday day a perfect 4-for-4 with a double and four RBIs to defeat the Yankees and their ace, Gerrit Cole, almost entirely on his own.

“I didn’t want to come out of the game, I already had in my mind that I wasn’t going to come out of the game no matter what,” Guerrero said through an interpreter a few minutes after getting stitches on his right hand. “I told (manager) Charlie (Montoyo), ‘I’m not coming out.’ ”

Guerrero’s big game will come as major relief to the Toronto front office and coaching staff, who had to be holding their breath when he crumbled to the ground during the second inning. The first baseman was attempting to catch a throw from Bo Bichette when he put his right hand on the ground to help maintain his balance.

Hicks was running through the bag trying to beat the throw and his cleat came down hard on Guerrero’s exposed hand. Within seconds, the Jays’ training staff was running onto the field to attend to the franchise player. Video close-ups showed blood gushing from one of Guerrero’s fingers as towels and bandages were used to stop the flow.

After a lengthy on-field delay, Guerrero somewhat surprisingly decided to remain in the game and it’s a good thing he did. After homering in the first inning, he went deep again in the third for the eighth multihomer game of his career. Three innings later, he was partially responsible for chasing Cole from the game when he doubled to the corner in right to finish 3-for-3 off the perennial Cy Young candidate. And he still wasn’t done.

Curt Schilling infamously had the bloody sock game in The Bronx that helped the Red Sox overcome a 3-0 deficit in the 2004 AL Championship Series. The stakes were obviously much lower Wednesday, but Guerrero sticking it out and coming through with some of his biggest blasts of the year was a similarly gutsy performance.

Guerrero’s numbers against Cole will be worth monitoring this season as the Jays and Yankees battle to make it out of the AL East. It’s a matchup that features who some would consider the game’s best hitter and the game’s best pitcher. To date, the advantage has gone to the man in the batter’s box.

In 21 career at-bats against Cole, Guerrero has a pair of doubles and a pair of homers to go along with two walks. Cole throws as hard as anyone in baseball and even that doesn’t seem to matter much against this young phenom. The 98-m.p.h. fastball that Guerrero hit out of the park in the third inning was the fastest pitch he went deep on during parts of four seasons in the majors.

“It was amazing,” Jays starter José Berríos said. “We know what to expect from Vladdy. He is a great talent, he has great ability. The main thing is to keep enjoying it because I think he’s going to do the thing he did tonight for a long time.”

Guerrero is now batting .391 with an eye-popping 1.374 on-base plus slugging percentage through six games, which should alleviate any concerns about a letdown following last year’s runner-up finish for the AL most valuable player award, if any of those concerns existed in the first place. He finished last season as an impact piece, and he appears to have every intention of remaining on a similar trajectory for 2022.

The season isn’t even a week old, and Guerrero is already setting records. On Wednesday, he surpassed Fred McGriff for the most homers in franchise history through 350 games at 76. And earlier this week, he had the longest and hardest-hit homer of his career with a 467-foot blast off the Texas Rangers that left his bat at 117.9 m.p.h.. As scary as it sounds after a season that involved 48 homers with a 1.002 OPS, the 23-year-old star from the Dominican Republic might be getting even better.

“It was the trailer last year, he said it. This year is the movie,” Montoyo said. “All kidding aside, that’s impressive … It was against Cole, one of the best pitchers in baseball. And to do it again after he was bleeding, that’s impressive. He deserves a lot of credit.”

While Guerrero was able to remain in Wednesday’s game after his injury, his status for the series finale could be up in the air. The Jays will have to wait and see how he feels on Thursday afternoon before determining their next steps, but his availability will be key, especially after Teoscar Hernandez was forced to leave Wednesday’s game with an apparent injury of his own.

Hernandez hit a grounder to second and then immediately grabbed his left side, potentially his oblique area. The 29-year-old didn’t come back out for his defensive duties in the bottom half of the inning and was replaced by Bradley Zimmer. The injury came just a few days after starting catcher Danny Jansen went down with a strained oblique of his own, an injury that Montoyo said could keep him out for “several weeks.”

The Jays will miss Hernandez’s presence in the lineup if he is sidelined for any stretch but, if Guerrero keeps swinging it this well, his absence won’t seem quite as bad as it otherwise would. After all, sometimes Guerrero can do it by himself, just like he did Wednesday night in The Bronx.

THREE THINGS

Here are three things you need to know about the Blue Jays’ victory:

Springer time

Guerrero isn’t the only hot bat in the Jays’ lineup these days; leadoff man George Springer has been equally effective through the first week. Springer entered play against New York with multiple hits in each of his last four games, and even though he was limited to a single on Wednesday night, it was a big one. Springer’s one-out RBI in the seventh broke a 3-3 tie and gave the Jays a lead they would not relinquish. The 32-year-old has 10 hits in six games, five of which have gone for extra bases.

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Berríos hits a wall

Berríos was coming off the shortest outing of his career after he retired just one batter while allowing four runs against the Rangers. He was much better against New York but, after four scoreless innings, he got into all sorts of trouble in the fifth. Anthony Rizzo and Aaron Judge hit back-to-back homers while DJ LeMahieu added an RBI double to tie the game 3-3. Berríos eventually escaped, but he didn’t return for the sixth. He was charged with three runs on six hits and three walks.

Sigh of relief

After Berríos departed, the Jays used four relievers to get through the rest of the game and close out the Yankees. Adam Cimber, Yimi Garcia and Jordan Romano all tossed scoreless frames while Trevor Richards got touched with a solo homer off the bat of Gleyber Torres. The Jays’ bullpen entered the game having tossed 26 innings, third in the AL behind the Yankees and Rays. Romano’s save was his fourth of the year and extended his consecutive saves streak to 27.

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca