Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hammered the baseball, then struck a pose for all of Canada.
The Toronto Blue Jays’ franchise player continued his two-game tear in the American League Division Series – and possibly administered a kill shot to the New York Yankees’ hopes of defending their pennant – with a fourth-inning grand slam off reliever Will Warren in Game 2 on Sunday, Oct. 5.
That turned a 5-0 game into 9-0 and by the end of the inning – when Daulton Varsho registered his third hit in four innings with a two-run home run – it was 11-0. George Springer’s homer in the fifth made it an even dozen runs.
Guerrero, who shook off three previous lackluster playoff appearances by hitting a first-inning home run to launch Toronto’s Game 1 win, now has six hits in seven at-bats and six RBIs against Yankee pitching.
And the moment he took Warren’s 2-1 fastball and parked it into the second level at Rogers Centre will likely be replayed for years from Mississauga to Victoria.
It keyed a six-run inning that saw the Blue Jays chase Yankees ace Max Fried, who gave up eight hits, seven runs and the go-ahead two-run homer to Ernie Clement.
Warren, the long man in this series, only poured accelerant on the raging flames. He gave up three homers to the first 11 batters he faced: Guerrero, Varsho and then George Springer in the fifth.