Toronto Sports Today

Toronto Sports News Continuously Updated

Blue Jays need Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to make postseason presence felt

by

The 2025 regular season was one to largely forget for Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He can make all of that a mere footnote with a big offensive performance in the postseason.

Guerrero’s 23 home runs and 84 RBIs in 156 games were his lowest totals in those two categories over the course of a full 162-game season since his rookie campaign in 2019, when he hit 15 home runs and drove in 69 runs over 123 games.
His struggles were particularly glaring down the stretch of the regular season. Guerrero slashed .172/.213/.190 with zero home runs and four RBIs over his last 15 games and 58 at-bats. Guerrero only hit two home runs with a .271 batting average and a .679 OPS over the last 30 games of 2025. The criticism directed towards him would have been extremely loud if the Blue Jays hadn’t found a way to hold off the New York Yankees and win the American League East for the first time since 2015.

Guerrero’s entering the postseason in one of his worst offensive funks in recent memory. With shortstop Bo Bichette’s status up in the air heading into Game 1 of the ALDS, the Blue Jays need Guerrero to find the form he’s capable of and emerge as an offensive linchpin to lead the team.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Guerrero’s postseason numbers have been a well-documented issue. In six playoff contests, Guerrero has just three hits across 22 at-bats (.136 average), one extra-base hit, and one run scored. Six games is a minuscule sample size, but Guerrero hasn’t looked comfortable in October thus far.

Despite the postseason struggles and a frigid finish at the plate in the regular season, Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins remains extremely confident in Guerrero making a major impact for the club in the postseason.

“He’s been one of the best players in the game and will continue to be,” Atkins said, according to Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. “He’s going to be a force for us in the playoffs.”

For better or worse, fans usually define a superstar player’s season based on how they perform when the lights are the brightest in the postseason. Yankees superstar Aaron Judge is a prime example of that. Judge hit 58 home runs with 144 RBIs en route to winning his second AL MVP in three years last season. However, Judge’s performance fell off a cliff in the postseason, as he hit just .184 with a .752 OPS across 14 games. Judge’s lasting memory from the 2024 postseason was dropping a routine fly ball in Game 5 of the World Series as the Yankees eventually blew a lead and saw their season end at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Blue Jays paid Guerrero $500 million to be the face of the franchise and their undisputed leader and superstar. Superstars find a way to make an impact in the biggest moments. The Blue Jays need Guerrero to put his postseason problems behind him and author a handful of signature moments in what will hopefully be a long and successful run through October.

PRESENTED BY 6IX INNING STRETCH PODCAST

Love baseball? Don’t miss The 6ix Inning Stretch — the brand new podcast from The Nation Network, presented by Betway. Hosted by Toronto sports reporter Lindsay Dunn and 3-time MLB All-Star Whit Merrifield, this weekly show delivers insider stories, unfiltered Jays talk, player interviews, and expert analysis from around the majors. New episodes drop every Wednesday — listen on your favourite podcast platform or watch on the Bluejaysnation YouTube channel.