Guerrero’s clutch homer quickly reverses Blue Jays’ fortunes vs. White Sox

CHICAGO — Misfortune in baseball seems to compound in periods of duress and there the Toronto Blue Jays were in the sixth inning, Bo Bichette unable to contain a Tim Anderson one-hopper and Chris Bassitt hanging a sweeper that Luis Robert Jr. sent into the sky alongside the July 4 fireworks. Like that, a comfy 2-0 lead became a 3-2 deficit and it felt like the woes of a weekend sweep by the Boston Red Sox had followed them down to the South Side.

An abortive rally in the seventh inning, in which the Blue Jays put men on the corners with one out but came up empty, only appeared to reinforce the notion. But life can come at you quick and did it ever in the eighth, which began with Brandon Belt working a walk ahead of a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. home run and ended with Erik Swanson working around a bad-break, one-out triple to keep a one-run lead intact in what finished as a 4-3 win over the Chicago White Sox.

“They take a lead, they do damage in the middle, we know that, and you kind of go, OK, we had a couple of chances to add on there and put some more runs on the board,” said manager John Schneider. “(Then) it’s a big-time player in a big spot with a great swing and gives us the momentum back. Swanny coming in and leaving the runner at third there, that was outstanding. That’s not easy to do. And I thought Nate (Pearson in a clean seventh) was really good, too. But momentum definitely shifted both ways really quickly, for us and for them.”

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Guerrero’s 13th of the season, a 367-foot liner to right field off an ill-advised high slider from Joe Kelly, is precisely the type of big-blow hit that’s been so hard to come by for the Blue Jays during this curious first half of the season. The first baseman, an all-star for the third straight season, now has four homers in his past 10 games, including a sixth-inning drive that beat the San Francisco Giants 2-1 last week, after going nearly a month with just one.

His timely hitting of late also included a ninth-inning RBI single off Kenley Jansen in Saturday’s 7-6 loss to Boston in which Bichette was thrown out at the plate to end the game.

“All at-bats are very important, of course, but especially late in the game, I kind of like mentally prepare myself even more just in case a big moment like tonight happens,” Guerrero said through interpreter Hector Lebron, adding later that “sometimes I think if I go 0-for-2, 0-for-3, hey, it’s OK, you still have one or two more at-bats, they might be very important for the team, so stay ready mentally. That’s the way I try to stay focused for important moments like this.”

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Whit Merrifield delivered one earlier in the game, a two-out, two-run double with the bases loaded in the fourth that opened the scoring, but the production paused there, as Alejandro Kirk’s soft liner up the middle was gobbled up by Zach Remillard to end the frame.

Bassitt, masterful through five, looked set to make it stand up, but a one-out single by Andrew Benintendi started a rally in the sixth, Anderson’s base hit that Bichette nearly corralled put two on and Robert crushed an 0-1 sweeper that sat right in the happy zone.

Bassitt managed to limit the damage there in a second straight strong start after three rough outings, which eventually set the stage for Guerrero.

“Obviously ridiculous power,” Bassitt said of Guerrero. “When he’s doing that, you know he’s on.”

Still, even after the Guerrero home run there was a tightwire to walk, one made all the more complicated for Swanson when an Anderson liner down the right-field line popped out of George Springer’s glove and the shortstop sped to third as the right-fielder flew into the netting.

“It sucked, George made a really good effort on that ball, didn’t go his way,” Swanson said. “When little things like that happen, they don’t go your way, it’s really easy to kind of let things get out of hand. The biggest thing with my job right there is to make sure it doesn’t. I was able to do that, get us back into the dugout with the same score and give us another opportunity to put up a few more runs. Just trying to minimize that spiral effect is the biggest thing there.”

Swanson fought off the bad vibes to pop up Robert and get Eloy Jimenez on a fly ball to left to end the eighth. Then Jordan Romano, who surrendered the game-winning homer to Alex Verdugo in the ninth inning Sunday, ripped through a clean ninth to lock down the win before a Guaranteed Rate Field crowd of 32,607, the Blue Jays finding a way to not only minimize their misfortune, but also reverse it.

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