Jorge CastilloOct 15, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.Follow on X
Seattle Mariners vs. Toronto Blue Jays: Game Highlights (1:12)Seattle Mariners vs. Toronto Blue Jays: Game Highlights (1:12)
“We didn’t start playing our best baseball until May,” Blue Jays starter Max Scherzer said. “But if that didn’t get settled, it would be this cloud hanging over our season the whole time. The fact that that was resolved just kind of settled everything down. The outside attention is resolved. It’s no longer, ‘What’s going to happen here?’ It kind of took the elephant out of the room.”
Down 2-0 after the Mariners dominated the first two games in Toronto, it’s no easy feat. But the goal Guerrero has set for himself hasn’t changed.
“For me my goal always is to win a World Series, to bring the World Series here,” Guerrero said earlier this postseason. “My father, he never had the chance to win a World Series. That’s one of my goals, always been one of my goals, to do that for me, for him.”
THE JOURNEY TO this breakout postseason for Guerrero and the Blue Jays began more than a decade ago. In January 2015, months before Guerrero was eligible to sign as an international free agent, Edwin Encarnación received a call from Alex Anthopoulos, then Toronto’s general manager: The Blue Jays wanted to see a 15-year-old Guerrero, their top target that year, work out again in the Dominican Republic — and they needed to find a ballpark.
“It was something special,” Encarnación said in Spanish on the field at Rogers Centre on Monday before Game 2 of the ALCS. “Vladdy was better than the Cubans. This kid, at 15 years old, showed off against them. He was special.”
“I was concerned with the last name, the hype and the expectations were going to be out of this world,” said Anthopoulos, now general manager of the Atlanta Braves. “And they were anyway, as much as we tried to play it down.”
“He’s not easily distracted,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said. “He’s still very human, and I think the hardest part, from my perspective and my view, that Vladdy’s had to deal with is the expectation. Not the distractions off the field or the attention. And he embraced the expectations.”
“I think he’s improved a lot in all aspects,” Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk said. “The experience, how he’s matured as a person. He’s no longer the 20-year-old Vladimir when he debuted. Now he’s Vladimir.”
VLADIMIR VASQUEZ WATCHED the Blue Jays close out the Yankees last Wednesday from his restaurant 5 miles north of Rogers Centre. Born in the Dominican Republic, Vasquez moved to Toronto when he was 11 years old in 1990 and quickly became a fan of the early-’90s Blue Jays championship teams. He opened Cabacoa, a Dominican restaurant, a year-and-a-half ago — a sign of the city’s growing Dominican community.
“I’ve been following Vladimir Guerrero Jr. since he was in the minors,” Vasquez said. “It’s funny because his dad was the only older Dominican Vladimir I knew growing up. But it’s important for the community, for the Dominican community, to have somebody who’s that good who’s going to be here long term.”
It’s part of the responsibility Guerrero shoulders beyond playing first base and batting third. He’s the only Canadian citizen on Canada’s only MLB team. His No. 27 jersey is the one Blue Jays fans wear from British Columbia to Newfoundland. He’s the player the Blue Jays committed to as their cornerstone through his age-40 season in 2039 — 20 years after his debut — with hopes he’ll end up with his own Hall of Fame career.
“I look at Vladdy long term because I’ve gotten to play with the greats,” said Scherzer, an 18-year veteran and three-time Cy Young Award winner. “I’ve gotten to play with so many great, different players over my career. For me, he kind of fits this Prince Fielder-Miguel Cabrera mold. He’s kind of a hybrid between those two.”
In the short term, the agreement was an exhale. Perhaps, as Atkins said he’d like to think, the Blue Jays would’ve found their footing without Guerrero signing the extension. The pieces were in place two years removed from an 89-win season. But that variable, which had lingered from the day Guerrero reported for spring training, was removed.
“I think it kind of showed our fan base and the league kind of what we’re trying to do here short and long term,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “And it just kind of clears a little bit of a cloud around a really good player and allows the team to say, ‘OK, this is our guy, this is what we’re going to do.’ I think it kind of freed everyone up.”
SIX MONTHS AGO, just seven games into the 2025 season, the Toronto Blue Jays arrived in Queens with uncertainty hovering over Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s future. New York Mets fans, hopeful that their team could eventually land the impending free agent and partner him with Juan Soto, welcomed the first baseman with notably loud cheers at Citi Field to open the weekend series. Guerrero and the Blue Jays had failed to reach an agreement on a contract extension before an arbitrary mid-February deadline, and the drama would not die.
Seattle Mariners vs. Toronto Blue Jays: Game Highlights (1:12)Seattle Mariners vs. Toronto Blue Jays: Game Highlights (1:12)
CloseESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.Follow on X
Six months later, the Blue Jays, behind their franchise pillar, are breaking through.
Seattle Mariners vs. Toronto Blue Jays: Game Highlights (1:12)
