Sizzling George Springer delivers in Blue Jays win over Red Sox

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Until Vlad Guerrero Jr.’s $500-million US deal is signed and official — which should happen in the next day or two — another Blue Jay remains the team’s highest-paid player.

And on Monday night at a frigid Fenway Park in Boston, outfielder George Springer played like it.

The veteran, who signed a six-year $150-million US deal back in 2021, was money all right, recording four singles — three of them driving in a run — to pace the Jays to a much-needed 6-2 win over the Boston Red Sox.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Jays after they were swept by the Mets in New York on the weekend. Starter Jose Berrios held the Red Sox to four hits as the Jays jumped back above .500 with a 6-5 record and ended a five-game winning streak for their AL East rivals.

After a terrible 2024 season at the plate and some persistent struggles at spring training, Springer is showing there is still some value in that breakthrough contract, one worth more than a third less than Guerrero’s landmark deal which will be made official once he passes a club physical.

Springer entered Monday’s contest batting .379 and seemingly fully recovered after leaving the game against the Mets on Saturday at Citi Field when he crashed hard into the centre field wall while attempting to field a ball.

By the time he left Fenway, that average had leapt all the way to .455 as the strong start to his season continues. That’s the highest batting average through the first 10 games of a season in Springer’s career.

With his three RBI on Monday, Springer now has the team lead in that department with nine. It’s an impressive start coming off a 2024 in which he drove in just 56 runs in 145 games.

The six runs the Jays managed on Monday doubled their entire total (three) in the  gloomy three-game visit to Queens to face the Mets.

It was a second consecutive solid start for Berrios, who got lit up in a 12-2 opening day loss to Baltimore in which the right hander allowed nine hits, three of them home runs. Not only did Berrios give the Jays seven innings of one-run work, he did so pitching effectively on a cold and rainy night in Boston’s Back Bay as he recorded his 100th career win.

Though it wasn’t exactly a booming night offensively for the Jays, at least it was enough to squeak out a win at Fenway. The team remains stuck on five home runs through 11 games, the fewest in MLB.

Guerrero is one of a handful of prominent Jays hitter still seeking his first long ball and though he didn’t get the bump from reaching agreement on his historic contract, he did have a walk and a pair of singles and scored the first run of the game on a Gimenez sacrifice fly in the third inning. Of note, each of the singles led off an inning.

As for that contract, which was agreed to in the wee hours of Monday morning, it is expected that Guerrero will pass a physical to make it official before the four-game visit in Boston winds up.

UP NEXT

The four-game stint at Fenway – Game 5 of a 10-game road trip – continues on Tuesday with the Jays Easton Lucas facing Garrett Crochet and the Red Sox. Easton, of course, made his first major league start a terrific one last week, throwing five shutout innings in a 4-2 win over the Washington Nationals.