Vladdy’s three homers lead the Blue Jays to a win in New York but Teoscar Hernandez left with an injury

This is one we’ll remember as a Vladdy Game.

Guerrero Jr. smashed three homers, two off of Gerrit Cole, as the Blue Jays beat the Yankees in The Bronx by a score of 6-4.
Things worth mentioning… 
The first Vladdy homer came in the first inning and it just scraped over the wall in centre field, the second came in the third inning and he managed to hit one of Cole’s fastballs that was in on his hands 427 feet to left field, and the third one came in the eighth inning off of Jonathan Loisaga and it looked like the ball was hit into space. Amazingly, two of the three homers came after Vladdy had his hand stepped on by Aaron Hicks as he ran out a ground ball past first base. Vladdy was gushing blood out of his hand, taped it up, and took that Cole fastball on the hands into the seats. Absolutely fucking nails.

Gerrit Cole has thrown 702 pitches in his MLB career at 95+ in & off the plate to righties.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the first hitter to ever hit a HR off one of those pitches. #BlueJays #NextLevel #Yankees pic.twitter.com/95YC27tLWK
— Chris Black (@DownToBlack) April 14, 2022

lol Vladdy hit this 427 feet pic.twitter.com/GZef4HU0y1
— Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA) April 14, 2022

Vladdy Jr. has hit 1,286 feet of home runs tonight, which is approximately a quarter of a mile.
— Molls (@mollyburkhardt) April 14, …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Assessing the bullpen, realistic June trade targets, and some names still around in free agency

Yes, Vladdy is apparently the best hitter in baseball right now, and yes George Springer seems on the cusp of finally coming back from injury, but all that Jays fandom can really talk about right now boils down to “The Bullpen – WTF?!”

Opinions run the gamut from “This happens in baseball, calm down” to “these guys suck” to “What was Charlie thinking?” to “Ross DO SOMETHING!!” To be frank, there’s some truth in all of those, some less so than others. I could spend the next 500 words just linking you to the various published opinions (there are MANY, not least on this very site) but I trust that if you’re reading this you’ve seen or passed on all of that. In order to bring something different to this discussion, it’s my intention to first get a relatively objective take on the extent of the problem before discussing what that implies for solutions. Of necessity (given the subject matter and my tendency towards verbosity) this will be fairly long.
The hinge point is coincidentally 30 days ago. On the morning of May 19, the Blue Jays had played basically a quarter of their season and were 23-17, on pace …

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Author: Tammy Rainey / Blue Jays Nation

Vladdy Watch: Is Friday the next most likely call-up date?

Extremely Brian Fantana voice: “VLADDY WATCH!”
Blue Jays fans are on pins and needles about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s arrival. Earlier this week, Bob Nightengale reported Vladdy would make his debut on Tuesday. That was debunked shortly afterwards, but the Jays’ rabid fanbase was still left wondering when baseball’s consensus number one prospect will make his MLB debut.
The reports of Tuesday’s debut were only a false alarm. As Vladdy Watch enters day 28 since the beginning of the 2019 season, whispers continue about his official introduction to the Major Leagues.
As of now, the timing seems perfect to bring Guerrero up ahead of Friday night’s series against the Oakland A’s. The Bisons play a mid-morning game in Syracuse today, followed by an afternoon matinee on Thursday. If the organization is concerned about Vladdy getting those extra reps, they could bring him along following the Bisons’ afternoon matchup in nearby Syracuse.
The Blue Jays have an off-day on Thursday following today’s mid-afternoon series finale against the San Francisco Giants, which leads perfectly into a Friday evening tilt featuring baseball’s hottest prospect. That’s enough time to build some momentum going into Friday and sell a few …

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Author: Ian Hunter / Blue Jays Nation