TORONTO — With each loss, you can see and feel the pressure that may soon boil over amid the Blue Jays’ frustrating 2026 season, which, with only 12 games until the Aug. 3 trade deadline arrives, is currently running on life support.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., of course, remains at the centre of that.

It’s no secret that the 27-year-old is currently mired in the worst offensive season of his career. After all, the right-handed-hitting first baseman — the face of this franchise — remains stuck on just six home runs across the club’s 100th game of the campaign. Everyone is still waiting to watch him round the bases for the first time at home this year.

A few months ago, manager John Schneider said he’d be willing to bet a dollar that Guerrero would hit at least one home run at Rogers Centre before the end of ’26. Based on the franchise slugger’s resume, chances are the skipper’s money will be safe in the end. But the fact that it hasn’t happened already is incredibly shocking.

It almost doesn’t feel real, the reality of being in such a dire position with Guerrero. Just last October, he was virtually unstoppable. He was beating opposing teams into the ground with his bat, namely the New York Yankees. This is the same player who had 29 hits, one shy of matching teammate Ernie Clement for the most in a single post-season in baseball history.

Last year’s ALCS MVP had eight home runs in 18 games. This season, he’s yet to hit more than six through 95 games. After Monday’s 0-for-4 performance — during which he hit a fly ball to the warning track in left field that, for a moment, appeared it may find the seats before being caught by Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson — his season stat line has dipped to a .259/.342/.353 slash and a 96 wRC+ (100 league average).

The first season of Guerrero’s 14-year, $500 million extension has offered his strangest one as a professional yet, and it’s taking a toll on Toronto’s superstar. After nearly connecting on his first home run in the third inning a night ago, he unbottled some of that building frustration, removing his helmet after rounding first base and motioning like he wanted to smash it into a million pieces before regaining his composure.

He knows his team’s season is slipping away, and that, one way or another, it’s on him to light a fire under this offence.

Contributing to the Blue Jays’ woes lately is that they’ve been held to just two runs in their previous 30 innings and are now averaging an MLB-worst 3.98 runs per game this season. With their post-season odds down to 11.1 per cent per FanGraphs, the offence is trending in the wrong direction on the ebbs and flows scale at the worst possible time.

And they’re rather short on time to course correct.

There have been a few encouraging signs from Guerrero recently, including a pair of home runs out West in San Francisco and San Diego before the All-Star break, plus a slight uptick in his exit velocities. Having said that, this doesn’t appear, at least as of yet, to be the long-awaited breakout that this lineup desperately craves.

They need a hot streak to save their season, and the surest path to one is through Guerrero’s bat. That’s a big part of why this year has been so frustrating. They have the pieces to turn this into a competitive year. The names on the back of the jerseys are, for the most part, the same ones that fuelled last year’s run to the World Series. But the results just haven’t been the same.

Maybe the Blue Jays can somehow salvage this thing before their playoff chances fall to zero. The time to do so is now, though. If they fail, the team’s frustration level will only continue to rise. For Guerrero, at that point, everyone’s best course will be to hope that ’26 doesn’t become anything more than an outlier.

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