CLEVELAND -- Wednesday night felt like one long exhale at Progressive Field for the Blue Jays. For a few hours, everything went right.
Sure, the Guardians helped the Blue Jays along by extending some innings with ugly defensive play, but all you’ll remember is the 11-0 win and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. finally looking like himself, if only for a night.
The win moves the Blue Jays back within 1 1/2 games of the Guardians for the final AL Wild Card spot, leapfrogging the Orioles and Rangers, who both lost Wednesday.
This is what mattered most:
1. Glimpses of the old Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Oh, what a night. Guerrero’s three-run shot was the star of the show, but on either side of that, Vladdy ripped an RBI double off the wall in left and shot an RBI single the other way to add on another run in the sixth.
"I think he was ready to hit a curveball and he hit a curveball,” said Guardians starter Joey Cantillo. “The second at-bat, same thing. He was ready to hit a curveball and he hit a curveball. We got him the third at-bat, which is good. But he's a good hitter, so when you leave pitches over the plate, he's going to hit."
It’s been so long since one of these games. Guerrero, at his best, can hold a game in the palm of his hand and control it completely, but we haven’t seen that since the Blue Jays’ 2025 postseason run. After the home run and later the RBI single, there were chants of “Vladdy” coming down from the Blue Jays fans in attendance, something else we haven’t heard in too long.
2. Same old Dylan Cease
No one deserved an easy night at the office more than Dylan Cease, who’s been stuck pitching in low-scoring deadlocks all season long.
“That’s nice because it definitely allows for a little more margin of error,” Cease said. “Ultimately, I try to pitch the same way, which is not to give up runs, obviously. Maybe it changes some pitch selections here and there, but ultimately, I still want to pitch pretty similarly.”
He still did the same old thing, though, cruising through the Guardians’ lineup over six innings of scoreless ball with four strikeouts. The outing dropped his ERA to 2.25, and in the AL Cy Young race against the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler, every start is going to matter down the stretch.
Cease has become a lock for six-plus innings. It’s such a rare combination in the modern game, when so many younger pitchers chase strikeouts but can’t match that with the durability and deep starts. Cease does both, and does it about as well as anyone.
“Dylan's been a really good strikeout pitcher his entire career. I think adding the changeup... He used to be just north-south -- heaters at the top, and then the two spin pitches underneath. And now he's pitching," Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.
"You add pitching to that arsenal and that stuff, you're going to get what you're seeing. He's been dominant this year. He's been one of the best, if not the best, starters.”
The bonus? Cease did this on 83 pitches. The Blue Jays need him out there as often as possible down the stretch, and this sets it up beautifully.
“That helps. I’m assuming I’m going to be going [every] five [days] for a while, so any chance to do something like that strategically, it’s a good idea,” Cease said.
3. A playoff mentality
Once you’ve been through what the Blue Jays went through in 2025, right up to Game 7 of the World Series against the Dodgers, “stress” takes on a different definition. In theory, a race for the third Wild Card spot should be much more manageable.
All of the “extras” can’t possibly compare, because there’s not the same media circus filling every empty second of manager John Schneider’s day, but there’s a mindset they can still reach back for.
“The mentality, going back to that Seattle series [in the ALCS] when we were coming home down 3-2,” Schneider said, “we just had to win tomorrow. We had to win the next day and figure it out. That’s the mentality right now.”
After Game 5 in Seattle, Ernie Clement sat at his locker, calm and cool, and said the Blue Jays were right where they wanted to be, controlling their own destiny even if they were down in the series. That’s the same mentality they need to carry through the final 22 games.