The thing about baseball is that there are times when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but you know you’ll never forget the moment.
So, I was just gearing up to write a nice paean to the mystique of Opening Day, when I decided to practice my game logging on Toronto’s last pre-season game, the second game of the now-traditional emotional spring closeout in Montreal at the Big O.
And then Vlady Guerroro Jr. happened.
This was a pitching duel the likes of which you seldom see in mid-season, let alone at the end of spring training. It was a beauty, despite my having to choke back consternation about the Jays’ mounting strikeout toll.
For eight innings plus it went, no runs, 8 total hits, 24 total strikeouts, 2 walks, and no errors. The managers, the newly-bespectacled John Gibbons for Toronto and the Cards’ Mike Matheny, who both played for Toronto in his catching career and played as an opponent against the Expos in Montreal, took diametrically opposed approaches to their pitching assignments for tonight’s game.
Matheny divided the assignment between three of his rotation pitchers, a final tuneup of three innings each for his presumed three, four, and five starters, Luke Weaver, Miles Mikolas, and Jack Flaherty.
And what a tuneup it was for them. Weaver gave up one hit, walked one, and fanned four. Mikolas gave up one hit and fanned six. Flaherty gave up one hit and fanned four. Oh, he also gave up the only run of the game to take the loss, but—Vlady—we’ll get to him.
Gibbons, on the other hand, didn’t use a single pitcher expected to make the Opening Day 25-man roster. Joe Biagini, finally destined to be the number one starter in Buffalo in order to begin his journey to MLB starting-pitcher glory, got the start. He threw five full innings of Jack-Morris style bend-but-don’t-break brilliance, giving up no runs on one hit with one walk and six big strikeouts.
Biagini worked quickly, and was rewarded with solid work behind him, his defence turning three double plays for him.
Mind you, the Cards hit some shots off him, and he was lucky to survive the first two innings, relying apparently on a big rabbit’s foot to survive three drives hit by the Cards. In the first, after he fanned leadoff hitter Dexter Fowler, Tommie Pham bounced one in the hole to the backhand of shortstop Gift Ngoepe, and reached first with an infield hit when Ngoepe couldn’t come up with it. Matt Carpenter followed with an absolute rope, but right at first baseman Kendrys Morales, who happened to be standing between the bag and the helpless Pham, and jogged to the bag for the DP.
Then in the second inning Biagini had to work around two drives into the left-field corner that should have produced a run. Except that adventurous (to be generous) left fielder Steve Pearce played the first one, from the hot bat of newly-acquired Cards’ slugger Marcel Ozuna, so quickly off the wall that Ozuna had to hold at first with a single that should have been a double.
This left Ozuna at first base, from which he was promptly erased when Jose Martinez bounced one out near the bag at second, perfectly placed for Ngoepe to turn a do-it-yourself double play. Then the catcher Yadier Molina hit another rope into the corner that Pearce again picked up quickly, and looked to be able to hold the ponderous veteran to another off-the-wall single, except that he spiked the throw into the ground and Molina chugged into second. Where he died when Paul Dejong flied out weakly to right to end the inning.
Biagini cruised the third, fanning two, gave up another hit to Pham to start the fourth, then was gifted with another easy double-play grounder by Matt Carpenter, who got to wear the bad luck hat on this night by hitting into two twin-killings.
Flagging a bit in the fifth, Biagini caught Martinez looking to lead off, but gave up an opposite-field single to Molina, and walked Dejong while pinch-runner Patrick Wisdom stole second. Everyone, including Biagini, was waiting for manager Gibbons to emerge from the dugout with the hook. But Gibbons, playing the game for exactly what it was, a test labratory for Biagini, left him out there. The big righty rewarded him by stranding Wisdom and Dejong, fanning slugger Jedd Gyorko and getting minor leaguer Yairo Munoz to ground out to Espinosa at second.
Biagini was followed on the mound by four Who-Dats, but Who-Dats who sure as hell pitched the lights out of the Cardinals, admittedly now parading more minor leaguers than big leaguers to the plate.
Big Canadian Andrew Case, impressive lefty Danny Young, and nearly-ready-for-the-show Jose Fernandez and Justin Shafer, both destined for Buffalo, blew down twelve Cardinal batters in a row. Case struck out one, Young struck out two, and Fernandez one. Shafer didn’t fan anybody, but threw so few pitches that he was back on the bench again before anyone even took note of his stylish blonde beard, sitting down to watch this epic duel of zeros end up awarding him the first win of his 2018 spring training, but that’s a story in itself.
A story that needs a little background, so here goes:
If there is any team in baseball more shrouded in the myths and nostalgia of what-if than the 1994 Montreal Expos, I can’t imagine which. We all know the story of a team that was far and away the best in baseball, having compiled a record of 74 wins and 40 losses before the season came to a crashing halt in August as a result of the only season-ending player strike/owners’ lockout in baseball history.
Woven into the 35-year history of the Expos is the sad understanding of many of their greatest fans that the strike in 1994 that kept the team from achieving the greatest victory of its existence also marked the beginning of the ten-year-long denouement of the franchise. And there is some credence to be given to the notion that had the Expos finished off the year with their clearly deserved World Series rings, it would have been the boost needed to cause the financially-troubled franchise to turn itself around and stave off its demise.
After 1994, if there was one player who, entirely on his own, might have warded off the end of the Expos in their last years, it was Vladimir Guerrero. The brilliance of his performance shone even brighter against the sad backdrop of a team whose end was clearly near.
Even though his career played itself out only about two baseball generations removed from our own day, when you look at Guerrero’s achievements, it was as if a god had descended from the skies to bless baseball with his presence. The fact that even Vladimir Guerrero could not accomplish the feat of saving the Expos is not a measure of his failure, but of the futility of the task he was given.
In the 16 years of his major-league career, Guerrero’s numbers made it inevitable that he would eventually be elected to the Hall of Fame, which finally happened just last year. Taking only the traditional measures of hitting prowess, for the sake of brevity, he hit .318 for his career, with 449 home runs and 181 stolen bases. He also had a rifle for a right-field arm, and racked up 126 career assists as a result.
But if you break out the first eight years of his career, when he toiled for the Expos, the numbers are even better, .323 with 234 homers and 123 stolen bases. From 1998 on, until his departure via free agency at the end of the 2003 season, he was truly the heart and soul of a team that was becoming feebler by the year, starved of the oxygen of money that could have kept it afloat.
Prior to the 1999 season in which Vladimir Guerrero appeared in 160 games for the Expos and made 674 plate appearances, his spring training was interrupted by the birth of his first son on March 16th in Montreal. The proud father and happy mother named him after his dad, and the world was introduced to Vladimir Guerrero Junior.
In recent interviews the younger Guerrero has said that his main memory of being in the Expo clubhouse with his father as a toddler was that the team had a soft ice cream machine for the players and he always got a treat.
Fast forward to July of 2015, when the sixteen-year-old Vlady Junior, ranked either the top or fourth-best international prospect, depending on which ranking system you used, signed with the Blue Jays for a reported 3.9 million dollars. Almost from the moment of his signing the anticipation of his arrival in Toronto has been keen. It has only grown over the last two years as fans have heard of his rapid progress through the lower levels of the farm system, showing himself more than equal to the challenges of each level.
Interest has peaked this spring, the first time that Vlady Junior was invited to participate to a limited extent in the major league camp in Florida. In a strange confluence of circumstances, Vlady has risen alongside Bo Bichette, son of former big leaguer Dante Bichette, who has shone himself equal to Vlady in every respect on the field. Together, they represent the future of the Toronto franchise.
In an even stranger circumstance, Vladi and Bo have been joined in camp by Cavan Biggio, second baseman and son of Hall of Fame second baseman Craig Biggio, and first-baseman Kacy Clemens, son of would-be Hall-of-Famer Roger Clemens.
After having been given the opportunity to appear in a couple of spring games with the big team, starting with the traditional Jays’ game against the Canadian National Junior team, it came as no surprise that John Gibbons added Vlady Guerrero, Bo Bichette, and Cavan Biggio to the expanded roster being taken to Montreal for the final two-game stand at Olympic Stadium against the Cardinals.
It also came as no surprise when Vlady Junior received three standing ovations from the sentimental Montreal crowd on Monday night, first when he entered the game as a substitute in the field for Yangervis Solarte at third base in the top of the seventh. The second came in the bottom of the inning when he came to bat and lined out to right field to end the inning, and the third in the bottom of the ninth when he grounded out to second to make the second out in the eventual Blue Jays’ loss.
Tonight the crowd of 25,000 greeted him just as enthusiastically as last night. He entered the game in the sixth inning of that scoreless tie, replacing Russell Martin at third, and was the last hitter to be retired by Miles Mikolas, barely nipped by a throw from short on a grounder. Mikolas, mind, retired all but one batter he faced in his three innings of work.
St. Louis’ third pitcher, Jack Flaherty, was even more effective, mowing down eight in a row. This brought him to a moment that fired our imaginations with its possibilities, a moment that, like the scene in The Natural, when Roy Hobbs in his civvies descends from the train and proceeds to strike out The Whammer, brought together all the elements of a perfect storm of drama.
Buck had already reported that the teams had announced there would be no extra innings if the game remained tied after nine innings. After Justin Shafer polished off the Cards in the top of the ninth, there could be only two outcomes: a Blue Jay win, or a scoreless tie.
Catcher Patrick Cantwell, a veteran minor leaguer who occupies a spot fairly low on the Toronto depth chart, was sent up to hit for Aledmys Diaz. He grounded out to short for the first out. Biggio, who had replaced Gift Ngoepe at second in the eighth inning, was overmatched and caught looking at a major-league curve ball.
And then it came down to this: Vlady Guerrero striding to the plate, short, bleached dreadlocks sticking out comically from under his cap. He is a less imposing figure than his dad’s 6-3 and 235 pounds. He clocks in at six feet and 200 pounds, and, honestly, looks like a bit of a pudge.
But—those numbers!
Last year, at mid-A Lansing, he hit .316 with 45 RBIs in 71 games. Then he moved to advanced A Dunedin, where he hit .333 with 31 RBIs in 48 games.
But that was A ball, against A-ball pitchers and A-ball fielders. This was the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, the former home of the Montreal Expos for whom his father had played so brilliantly. And this was Jack Flaherty, a young right-hander who had already secured a place in the St. Louis rotation, and had shown why, over the last two and two thirds innings.
Sure, there was the possibility of a miracle, but who really thought it might happen? Yes, Buck Martinez mused as he walked up to the plate about how great it would be if Vlady ended it. But, seriously? He just turned 19. Right out of A-ball.
But also seriously: Vladimir Guerrero Junior is clearly a young man with a sense of occasion. Flaherty missed with his first pitch. Then he threw slider. A nice slider, with a nice break to it. But right over the heart of the plate, and way higher than the Cards’ hurler wanted it.
Vlady Junior jumped on that hanger and crushed it. You knew it was out off the bat. So did he. So did his team-mates, who started out onto the field when he was only half-way to first. Randy Arozarena, patrolling centre for St. Louis, knew it too. He turned back to his right, took a couple of steps, and then just stopped and watched it soar over the fence in left centre, finally coming down halfway up the outfield bleachers, initiating a mad scramble for the ball.
It was certainly a nice gesture for Manager John Gibbons to have brought young Vladimir Guerrero Junior along with the major leaguers to play in Montreal. It was an even nicer gesture to give him some playing time and a few at bats at the Big O, so that he could be acknowledged by the Montreal fans. What a nice story that made.
Only thing is, nobody told Vlady Junior that his presence was a gesture. He came to Montreal to play some baseball, and damn, he sure did.
Tonight might not bear the impact of Edwin’s walk-off game-winner in the 2016 Wild Card game, but it will be as equally hard, I think, to forget.
So yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and sometimes, fairy tales do come true.
Thursday is Opening Day. Let’s go Blue Jays, and don’t forget: there’s a kid heading for New Hampshire who’s got your back, and might just see you in the Show!
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