Back-to-back blasts to end it! Barger, Loperfido send 'em home happy

TORONTO -- The waning days of the 2024 season need to matter for something, and if the wins don’t mean much, the moments must.

Addison Barger’s walk-off home run on Friday night at Rogers Centre gave the 24-year-old rookie his first major moment in the big leagues, charging around the bases before he was mobbed by his teammates at home plate.

The ball was long gone -- a 439-foot rocket that came crashing down into a mob of fans in the right-field bleachers -- but thankfully for Barger, they have a few cameras at these games so he can remember what it all looked like.

“I think I probably blacked out,” Barger said, still beaming after the 5-4 win over the Angels. “Just surreal. An unbelievable moment.”

What felt like another quick, forgettable game between two teams who aren’t within eyesight of the postseason, became something the Blue Jays and their young core can hold onto. There’s the sentimental side to this, all of these young men like Barger enjoying a moment he’ll tell stories of long after his playing days are done, but this is exactly what the Blue Jays want to see. Something, anything that this organization can point to as a reason 2025 will be better than everything that’s come before this.

This team looks nothing like the one we expected to be watching celebrate wins in late August. They’ve fallen out of the race, dealt eight players and struggled in ways both expected and surprising. A handful of veterans remain, though, and you can see how energizing these moments can be for them, too, even amid a lost season.

As Barger’s shot cleared the wall in right, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. bolted from the dugout, almost as if he was trying to get to home plate before Barger touched first, their own secret race. By the time Barger rounded third, all of his teammates formed a crescent behind home plate, leaving an opening for him to come crashing in. It was George Springer who just couldn’t wait, drifting a few feet up the line towards third base, trying to pull Barger home a few steps quicker.

“It’s new for a lot of them,” manager John Schneider said. “The veteran guys do a good job of enjoying it. Barger will remember that. Joey Loperfido will remember that swing. Just an unbelievable night for Joey all around. It was cool. The guys are having fun in there.”

Loperfido is the man who set up Barger’s moment, the first half of the back-to-back blasts that ended it all.

Another 24-year-old who, like Barger, struggled in his early days with the Blue Jays, Loperfido is suddenly on fire. He’s hitting lasers, running the bases aggressively and even made a leaping catch in left field -- all of that homework paying off after he joked he’s been watching Daulton Varsho and taking notes.

“Above results, it just feels good to come through for these guys,” Loperfido said. “When I was struggling earlier when I first got here, I said that I just wanted to come through in big spots. To work hard, grind, make those adjustments and be able to come through for the guys like that feels good. That’s the best part.”

If Barger can follow a similar path to Loperfido, who seems to have grabbed onto a couple of big moments and continued to pile them up, the final weeks of this season start to look much different. Barger’s incredibly gifted, one of the most physically impressive athletes you’ll see on a baseball field, but there’s a whole other side to success in the big leagues.

On the pitch prior to Barger’s walk-off, he nearly ended it even earlier. He was early on a Roansy Contreras fastball and ripped it foul, but then his mind started to spin. Barger thought to himself that Contreras’ changeup was his best pitch, so this was his opportunity to sell out and take his shot. It worked. It’s that exact thought process that will allow Barger to unlock his potential.

We’ll have that conversation about Barger a dozen more times down the stretch, then a hundred more in 2025. There will be time to pick apart his swing and forecast the player he’ll be in ‘25 and beyond, but that’s for one of the many days that lie between now and next spring. For tonight, he just has to enjoy his moment.

“Oh, that ranks number one,” Barger said. “That’s got to be number one.”