Despite falling to Rays, Blue Jays' $8.2M star checks off milestone even Vladimir Guerrero Jr. lacks

Blue Jays star Daulton Varsho set records during Tuesday night's game that not even his All-Star teammate and known power hitter Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has ever done. Varsho's two homers in the contest had exit velocities of 113.9 and 113.6 miles per hour, respectively.

Varsho first went yard in the fourth inning of Rays pitcher Shane Baz with a solo bomb. He then followed it up in the eighth inning off reliever Edwin Uceta for a three-run blast that gave Toronto a 7-6 lead.

Expand Tweet

Per baseball statistician Sarah Langs, the center fielder became the first Blue Jays player with at least two 113+ mile an hour home runs in a game since Statcast tracking in 2015.

Baseball Savant also has Varsho finishing upwards of the 60th-percentile when it comes to maximum exit velocity since his debut in 2020. This includes a career-high 81st-percentile finish in 2023.

The $8.2 million-valued utility man finished the game by going 2-for-5 with the aformentioned home runs and four RBIs. Varsho currently has five home runs and 11 RBIs in 36 at-bats this year.

Unfortunately for the Jays, they would fall short to the Tampa Bay Rays in the opener of the three-game series in The Six.

Blue Jays drop thrilling series-opener to the Rays

After a back-and-forth contest, the Toronto Blue Jays succumbed to the Tampa Bay Rays in the series-opener of the two sides, Tuesday night. The AL East battle saw a thrilling battle that produced an 11-9 score line and a late comeback courtest of the visitors.

The Rays opened the scoring in the third inning as Brandon Lowe's two-RBI single combined with Jonathan Aranda's two-run blast gave the visitors a 4-0 lead. Half an inning later, Bo Bichette cut the lead two with a two-run shot for his third home run of the season.

Daulton Varsho would then record his first home run of the night with a solo blast as the Blue Jays inched closer to the Rays. Tampa would continue to widen the gap as former Blue Jay Danny Jansen homered to left field to push the score line to 6-3. Ernie Clement and Daulton Varsho would each record home runs in the following frames as Toronto momentarily held the lead 7-6 heading into the ninth.

Expand Tweet

In the final canto, however, Tampa's Junior Caminero smashed a go-ahead grand slam to put the game away for the visitors. Toronto closer Jeff Hoffman was handed the loss and a blown save after allowing five earned runs in 0.1 innings pitched.

About the author

Daniel Santiago is a journalist who has been reporting on baseball at Sportskeeda since 2022. He was drawn towards the sport after the underlying statistics and the analysis surrounding it grabbed his attention.

Daniel particularly enjoys furnishing reports about historic events in baseball and analyzing the game through a statistic-based outlook, based on Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference. This is in line with how he enjoyed watching baseball as a pastime. As a writer, he is very particular about cross-checking from reputable sources and doing his due diligence.

He became a lifelong Hideki Matsui fan after his exploits in the 2009 World Series for the New York Yankees. Among the current generation, Daniel's favorites include Shohei Ohtani and Jung Hoo Lee. Daniel is a huge follower of Asian baseball and both Ohtani and Lee have been in the top echelon of their respective leagues during their time with the NPB and KBO.

His favorite moment as a baseball fan was the final at-bat of the 2023 World Baseball Classic between Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. He believes there aren't many words to fittingly describe the intensity of the moment.

As an avid sports fan, Daniel watches other sports and Esports when not writing about baseball.

Know More

Edited by Daniel Santiago