TORONTO -- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. officially launched his campaign for the 2022 home run crown on Sunday afternoon at Rogers Centre, and if you didn’t see it, you heard it.

Guerrero’s 467-foot blast left his bat at 117.9 mph, the longest and hardest-hit home run of his career. By the time it crashed into the bleachers in left-center field (or, rather, was bare-handed on an impressive grab by a Toronto fan), which seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, the ball had barely even begun its descent.

This put the Blue Jays ahead by five runs and looked like another nail in the series sweep over the Rangers, but Hyun Jin Ryu and Toronto’s pitching crumbled shortly after, and the team skidded to a 12-6 loss.

The homer was trademark Guerrero, though, setting not only a new bar for himself, but for the Blue Jays as well, with the team’s hardest-hit home run since Statcast began measuring in 2015. Guerrero somehow looked even stronger this spring down in Dunedin, Fla., routinely putting on a show on the back fields of the Blue Jays complex, and that carried right into the regular season. 

“If it wasn’t for that wall, I don’t know how far that was going to go,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. “That’s fun to watch. I never really look at miles per hour, but I think that was 118? That’s just not easy to do. I don’t know how many people can do that. He’s one of them.”

Guerrero hit 48 home runs in his breakout 2021 season, racking up 111 RBIs with a 1.002 OPS. That was good for a second-place AL MVP finish behind the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani. That also gave Guerrero the second-most home runs in a single season in Blue Jays history, leaving only José Bautista’s 54. Only 53 to go.

Guerrero’s physical build has long been a conversation point, particularly through 2020 and into his big ‘21 season, but he’s never looked better. You can see it in his posture, his shoulders somehow looking broader and the way he’s moving on the bases.

“I definitely focused on muscle,” Guerrero said through an interpreter in camp. “I maintained my weight. I feel good the way I am, so we worked very hard in the offseason to get more muscle.”

Through the first two games of the series, Guerrero showed the quieter aspects of his game that make him special, shooting the ball the other way and taking what pitchers gave him. The combination of that and Sunday’s long shot produce his MVP candidate makeup, but of course, the 23-year-old superstar can’t do it all alone.

Ryu was rolling early, offering a glimpse into the optimism that he’ll return to his 2019 and ‘20 forms, but he quickly found trouble when his pitches funneled out over the plate. He left after allowing six runs on five hits over just 3 1/3 innings and taking a comebacker off the leg. Though he was diagnosed with a left hamstring contusion, it isn’t expected to be anything serious.

This comes after Opening Day starter José Berríos struggled mightily, recording just one out (though the Blue Jays stormed back to win). It hasn’t gone smoothly, but Montoyo isn’t worried just yet.

“It’s a thing that many teams might get because of the short Spring Training,” Montoyo said. “[The pitchers are] not really built up. They have track records, though, so you have to be patient. That’s the main thing we go with, track records. It was a short Spring Training and they only had four or five starts, so they’re not really built up.”

While Toronto’s rotation has the talent and potential to be one of baseball’s best, simply being reliable will be more than enough. The team’s offense has shown through the early hours of the season that it’s capable of breaking games wide open at any moment, representing a nightmare for opposing pitchers from one through nine. In that nightmare, of course, Guerrero is the monster.

Now that we’ve seen the height of Guerrero’s talent in 2021, much of his focus has been on sustainability. While his added muscle clearly helped -- judging by that exit velocity -- it’s also meant to keep him strong over a full 162 games as players understandably wear down and often drop a few pounds.

There’s plenty more to come from Guerrero, and once this rotation finds its footing, his big nights should involve powering wins instead of being overshadowed.