Vladimir Guerrero Jr. still doesn’t know why.
He’s faced questions about it before, about why his numbers at Yankee Stadium — 16 homers, 30 RBIs, a 1.002 OPS in 48 games — are so strong, and the $500 million Blue Jays superstar can’t explain it outside of feeling good.
But Guerrero’s tormenting of the Yankees has stretched beyond The Bronx.
He collected a .302 average with a .918 OPS across 102 regular-season games against them and added another chapter during Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS — going 6-for-10, providing a solo homer in the opener and then delivering a dagger of a grand slam Sunday.
With the series shifting ballparks for Game 3 on Tuesday, and with the Blue Jays one win away from the ALCS, the villain the Yankees still haven’t solved gets a chance to deliver the final blow.
The face of Canada’s lone team has a chance to produce more playoff magic.
“I think Vlad has been dealing with some level of awe or superstardom from when he was a teenager,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said Monday. “… When he signed his extension, I think he kind of understood that with that comes a little bit of extra responsibility to the organization, to the city, to the country, and he’s really kind of tackled that head-on.”
When Schneider managed Double-A New Hampshire for Toronto in 2018, fans chased down the Fisher Cats bus for autographs from Guerrero and Bo Bichette. When Blue Jays shortstop Andrés Giménez participated in international free agency tryouts in 2015, Guerrero also attended — “hitting bombs” in the first group of batters and causing Giménez to be uncertain in the next group, Giménez recalled with a laugh.
It wasn’t always a guarantee that 2025 would end like this for the Blue Jays, though.
Guerrero’s contract saga lingered throughout spring training, and Toronto stared down a dangerous scenario of watching its homegrown star walk when free agency arrived.
That outlook changed when Guerrero, 26, inked his 14-year extension. Guerrero hit .292 with an .848 OPS during the regular season, and in the first inning Saturday, he sent a ball over the left field fence off Luis Gil.
Then, with the Yankees already crumbling Sunday, Guerrero blasted a Will Warren pitch 415 feet. There was the bat flip. There was the Rogers Centre crowd erupting around him. There was the foghorn going off and little hints of poetry and irony and cinema all colliding together in one iconic playoff moment.
“There’s a little bit of extra emotion, little bit of extra meaning, if you will, that Vlad who is here for a long period of time, was right in the middle of it,” Schneider said of the weekend.
And the Yankees have been left raving about Guerrero. He’s someone who can impact the game even defensively, manager Aaron Boone said. Someone who can beat out infield hits, provide pressure on the bases and — more generally — “really cemented himself as kind of the face and leader of that organization.”
Someone who — for the 2025 postseason, for the 2025 regular season, for all of his career — the Yankees haven’t discovered any answers for.
“Certainly a guy we have a ton of respect for that’s hurt us over the years,” Boone said.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
