It was prophesied: Vladdy Jr. the youngest Blue Jay to 100 HRs

TORONTO -- Blue Jays interim manager John Schneider outlined the prophecy before Wednesday’s game: “I think you’ll see Vladdy be Vladdy here pretty shortly.”

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had been slumping through the start of September, lacking the prodigious power that makes him one of the game’s elite hitters.

• Box score

Then, with his first swing of the night against Rays starter Drew Rasmussen, Guerrero skied a fastball over the left-field wall, putting the Blue Jays on the board in a 5-1 win over Tampa Bay at Rogers Centre. With his towering blast, the 23-year-old became the fastest to 100 homers in Blue Jays history, as well as the 12th youngest to reach that feat in AL/NL history.

And given Guerrero’s power outage of late, the timing couldn’t have been better.

Prior to Wednesday, Guerrero had just one home run in his previous 25 games, as well as a .220/.270/.288 slash line in 13 games to begin the month. The two-time All-Star hasn’t had that kind of rough patch in a while, but it resembles some of his struggles as a rookie in 2019.

The difference between then and now, of course, is experience.

“You can compare it to his rookie year and see that he’s three years older and three years more mature,” Schneider said pregame. “And his work, his demeanor, all that stuff has been consistent. He’s handling it like a pro. … So yeah, I think it’s just a matter of time until he’s putting the [home run] jacket on again.”

That time may have come even sooner than Schneider expected. But it has been on Guerrero’s mind every day for more than two weeks as he sat on No. 99.

“Every day that I get here to the field, the clubbies always remind me, ‘Hey, you need one more to 100. You need one more to 100,’” Guerrero said through translator Hector Lebron. “… You get a little bit aggressive, I can say that. But I guess that’s part of it.”

The aggression led to some poor swing decisions, which led to the recent funk. Most teams try to attack Guerrero at the bottom of the zone to coax a ground ball. Lately, the slugger has been biting too often.

Perhaps that makes Guerrero’s 100th homer even sweeter, given that it came on a low-and-in fastball that would have been easy to roll over. Guerrero did exactly the opposite, clubbing the pitch to left at a 38-degree launch angle -- the highest home run of his career.

The Rays didn’t change their low and below-the-zone strategy on Guerrero in his ensuing three at-bats, two of which ended on groundouts to shortstop. Guerrero will continue to blitz elevated mistake pitches, but he’ll need to continue working on his approach to lower offerings, too.

“He can hit any ball really hard,” Schneider said. “So it’s just a matter of understanding what a team is doing to you and making the proper adjustments, I think.”

Guerrero’s third-inning groundout brought in the game’s second run, providing enough cushion for Blue Jays starter Ross Stripling in another stout performance.

Stripling tossed 6 1/3 innings of three-hit, one-run ball. He has hit the six-inning mark in six consecutive starts, and he owns a 2.47 ERA since rejoining the rotation in June.

His changeup has been crucial to that success, especially in two of his most recent starts. Stripling collected a season-high 14 whiffs with that pitch on Sept. 4 in Pittsburgh, and he had eight more on Wednesday night.

“I think it just spins like my fastball,” Stripling said. “I don’t necessarily think it’s the sexiest pitch metrically, I don’t even know how it moves horizontally or vertically. But from the feedback that I got, it’s that it spins like my fastball.”

With the win, the Blue Jays (81-62) held on to sole possession of the top American League Wild Card spot. And Guerrero, luckily, reclaimed his milestone homer thanks to the fact that it landed in Toronto’s bullpen.

He said he’s giving the ball to his Hall of Fame father, who hit home run No. 100 in fewer games (438 vs. 486), albeit at an older age (25 vs. 23).

“He’s gonna feel very proud of me,” Guerrero said.