Watch Vladimir Guerrero Jr. destroy a hanging breaking ball

Today was Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 9th day in AAA. International League pitchers initially showed little interest in pitching to him, so he took his walks, ticking off the patience box. He’s only got two strikeouts, so there’s so problem ticking off the contact box. A 3-for-4 night last night on the heels of a 2-for-2 in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader sent his batting average up to .389 and the hitting box was ticked off.

The one thing he hadn’t really done was show off his power. So on the ninth day, Vlad Jr. got to work ticking off that last offensive box.

After lining a pair of hard line drive hitss in his first two at-bats (ho-hum, we already said that box was covered), he did this:

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The way he totally turned on the hanging breaking ball and totally demolished a no doubter off the bat gave me flashbacks of the home run he hit in Montreal to close out Spring Training.

The cherry on top? The pitcher he terrorized for those three hits was not some org guy was mediocre stuff where it’s nice but of questionable inferential value. It was Kyle Wright, an elite prospect in his own right who was drafted 5th overall last year and is comfortably inside the 50 prospects in baseball. Like when he took Jack Flaherty deep for the walkoff in Montreal (3.27 ERA in 96.1 innings in 2018), he’s doing it against guys with top notch stuff.