Blue Jays: The offense will continue to struggle if Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s bat stays silent
Photo credit: © John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images
By Ben Wrixon
Jun 25, 2026, 17:00 EDTUpdated: Jun 25, 2026, 15:33 EDT
There are many reasons why the Toronto Blue Jays will hit the halfway point of the 2026 MLB season having lost at least half their games, but perhaps none bigger than the continued underperformance of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at the plate.
The $500-million man entered Thursday with a .723 OPS. The face of the franchise is on pace for roughly eight home runs and less than 70 RBIs over the course of a full season. It’s not enough, and consequently, the Blue Jays haven’t been good enough.
Guerrero is more lost than he’s ever been. He appeared happy to settle for singles over extra-base hits earlier in the season, but he has struggled to get any kind of hit since the calendar flipped to May. The eye test and the analytics agree that his approach is broken.
The issue is that baseball only masquerades as an individual sport; the idea that each at-bat is an isolated event with no bearing on the next is a fallacy. Guerrero’s struggles are making life more difficult for everyone else on the team.
The Blue Jays’ abysmal results hitting with runners in scoring position are a case in point. Everyone is pressing in these situations because the man who is supposed to anchor the lineup isn’t doing his job. Stars are supposed to absorb the pressure so their teammates feel less of it, yet the opposite is happening with Guerrero right now.
Bo Bichette was that anchor in 2025, leading MLB with a .381 average with runners in scoring position. George Springer, Nathan Lukes, and Guerrero all fared better in those spots, knowing they had Bichette behind them in case they failed. It’s no coincidence the Blue Jays’ offence struggled mightily after he went down in September.
Would anyone expect the New York Yankees to be doing well if Aaron Judge had a .700 OPS through 80 games? Probably not. Consider the Seattle Mariners: they entered Thursday just one game over .500 because Cal Raleigh has been downright awful at the plate when he’s been healthy enough to play. Their anchor has been an albatross.
Guerrero is not the only Blue Jay underperforming right now, of course. He’s also not the only good hitter in Toronto’s lineup, just like Judge and Raleigh aren’t the only big names on their respective squads. But they are the straws that stir the drink.
His struggles also have a trickle-down effect on the pitching staff. Every game the Blue Jays win is a nail-biter in which they have to use all their high-leverage relievers because they don’t score enough runs to breathe. This ultimately leads to situations like Tuesday, when they blew a late lead because Louis Varland wasn’t available.
Guerrero gets paid a massive salary to carry the team, but the whole team is carrying the weight of his mediocrity right now. There are no excuses for this extended slump. He has to be better than this if the Blue Jays are going to turn their season around.
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