TORONTO -- The Blue Jays need Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to get back to his old ways offensively, so they’re open to some new ideas.
Guerrero’s name was atop the lineup when Tuesday’s card was posted, his first time batting leadoff since Sept. 29, 2024, the final game in a lost season. We haven’t reached the point of “desperate times call for desperate measures” quite yet, but the Blue Jays need to try something.
“We’re just trying to shake things up for him a little bit and we’ll see how it goes,” manager John Schneider said.
Last month during a particularly rough stretch for Guerrero, the Blue Jays moved him up from third to second in the lineup. That’s how Schneider has always wanted it, but it’s long been a tug-of-war between him and Guerrero going back to his days in the Minor Leagues, with Vladdy always preferring the No. 3 spot.
There’s not much room for personal preference at this point, though. After going 1-for-4 in Tuesday night's 3-2 win over the Phillies, Guerrero has just three home runs in 66 games with a .737 OPS, numbers that just don’t make sense coming from the same player we all watched last October in the postseason.
“It was a pretty short conversation,” Schneider said. “I’ve been talking to him about it for a while. I feel like I’ve been talking about him in the two hole for five years. We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago and he said, ‘I’ll hit wherever.’ It was probably a three-minute conversation last night.”
Perhaps this gets Guerrero a different pitch, an extra at-bat in the ninth inning or just refreshes him mentally. In some ways this is an art form, in some ways a science. The Blue Jays need Guerrero to get hot at the middle of their lineup, though, especially at a time that George Springer is also struggling.
It’s possible Springer slides right back into the leadoff spot Wednesday when he returns to the lineup, but again, the Blue Jays are open to ideas. As they piece this together, Guerrero is priority No. 1, then the rest can sort itself out. Vladdy always comes first.
“It’s no secret. We go as Vlad goes,” Schneider said. “No one feels that more than him. I wanted him to get up there and have as many at-bats as he can. He’s going to get it going eventually. We’ll just see how this goes today and see how it goes going forward. Nothing is set in stone, but he’s open to it.”
It’s no easy assignment with Zack Wheeler (5-1, 2.31 ERA) on the mound before the Phillies close out the series with lefty Jesús Luzardo (4-4, 4.56 ERA) in the finale Wednesday night at Rogers Centre.