Article: Milestone Alert! Vladdy’s 1,000th Hit

[Mike LeSage]

Ahead of spring training we flagged a number of potential milestones that might be hit this season. Check out our previous entries: Berríos’ 100 wins, Vladdy’s 500 runs and Bichette’s 100 HRs.

As with the previous milestone appreciation articles, we’ll be looking back at the plays and the pitchers that helped get Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to hit #1000. Starting with the milestone-setter itself: on Friday night in Sacramento Vladdy earned the 1000th hit of his career with a 5th inning single off of Athletics pitcher Luis Severino to the deep right-centre gap. This was Guerrero’s 16th career at bat against Severino and his fifth hit against him (early in Vladdy’s career he had a 5 K streak spread over three games against Severino). Guerrero becomes the 10th player in franchise history to get 1000 hits with Toronto and the youngest of the ten to do it.

It only took Guerrero three at bats in his debut game in 2019 to get his first hit, a double off of (then Oakland) Athletics pitcher Yusmeiro Petit. Toronto opened the gates early that game and allowed fans into the Rogers Centre early just to watch Vladdy take BP. He would go on to hit 195 more doubles up to this point. He’s had 172 hits leave the yard as homers and another 626 singles, but my favourites are probably the 6 triples. Two of those triples coming against the Yankees are just a bonus, plus one against Tampa Bay that ultimately gets fielded by future-teammate Kevin Kiermaier.

798 of Vladdy’s hits have come against right handed pitching with just 202 against lefties. Though his batting average suggests it's more about opportunity than anything else (.290 vs RHP and .273 vs LHP). He’s also pretty evenly split home and away with 396 hits coming at the Rogers Centre (and another 91 at the Jays’ temporary pandemic home stadiums) and 513 on the road. His 72 at Fenway mark the most hits in another team’s stadium. 

All but one of Guerrero’s hits have come when he started the game, the one exception occurred in his rookie season. He was brought in to pinch hit for Jonathan Davis in the 7th inning of a game in Tampa, and while he didn’t get a hit in that AB, he did knock a double in the 9th inning in his second at bat, marking his only career hit as a substitute. 

Almost half (449) of Guerrero’s hits have come with a man on - and 238 of them with one in scoring position. He has hits in almost every possible man-on/out situation with the exception of a runner on 3rd with no out (he’s 0 for 6 in that situation). Vladdy doesn’t like to waste his time at the plate, notching a hit on the first pitch he’s seen 227 times - including the milestone hit. On six occasions he’s taken an at bat to the ninth pitch before getting a hit. 

Guerrero’s hits have come against 497 different pitchers, with his 12 hits against Gerrit Cole topping the list. Dean Kremer and Brayan Bello have each given up 11 and Nathan Eovaldi is responsible for 10 making them the only pitchers in double-digits. Vladdy’s two hits against CC Sabathia are his only hits against someone already in the Hall of Fame. Guerrero also has hits against current teammates Chris Bassitt (1), Chad Green (1) and Max Scherzer (2). The two against Scherzer both went yard, one a solo shot and the other a grand slam - I wonder if that ever comes up in the clubhouse (overall he’s 2 for 8 with one K against Scherzer). He’s 0 for 3 against José Berríos and 0 for 1 facing Jeff Hoffman. Somewhat surprisingly, he’s never faced Kevin Gausman - Gausman’s five and a half years in Baltimore came before Vladdy’s debut and then Gausy spent four seasons in the NL before coming to Toronto.

Guerrero’s longest hit streak is 22 games - a feat he has managed twice in his career. One of those streaks accounted for 40 total hits, the other 34. Vladdy has eight 4-hit games in his career and 274 multi-hit games total. His longest hitless streak has only been four games (he’s done that 3 times), so when the bat goes quiet, it doesn’t stay quiet for long. Guerrero also has used three of his 1000 hits to walk-off a Jays win (all in 2022) and has 10 hits in extra innings.

<blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:ev63j3cc3lou65xc3zocetgo/app.bsky.feed.post/3ltqouz3qvc24" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreick6nbsbe7fmlewb7ni46pyxghh2pfufdi6hochpetsyfxov6izzm" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode="system"><p lang="en">John Schneider said his favourite Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit so far was hit No. 1 back in 2019

Guerrero Jr. said his favourite was hit No. 1000, tonight. 

Guerrero Jr. said he ideally wants to match his father (2,590) and reach 3,000 hits.

As with his run-scoring milestone and given the contract extension I’m hoping to see you all back here in 2032 to celebrate Vladdy’s next 1000! In post-game comments Guerrero Jr. made it clear that he is intending to at least match Guerrero Sr. (2,590 hits) and ideally reach 3,000. It was noted during the broadcast that the last player to reach 3,000 was Miguel Cabrera and that Vladdy is only slightly behind his pace. Cabrera got his 1000th hit in his 862 game, while Guerrero did it in 911. Cabrera also has a 174 hit cushion over 3000, so if Vladdy can stay healthy and continue to hit like he does there's no reason to think he won't get there.

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