Vladimir Guerrero Jr. belts walkoff homer for Jays in front of hometown fans in Montreal

Tom Gatto

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. belts walkoff homer for Jays in front of hometown fans in Montreal image

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s return to Montreal this week ended perfectly.

Guerrero blasted a walkoff homer in the bottom of the ninth inning Tuesday night to give the Blue Jays a 1-0 win over the Cardinals in their spring training finale.

Forget that the game meant nothing in the standings: The video below shows how meaningful the dinger was for the 19-year-old Guerrero, the Jays and the fans in Montreal, the city where the youngster was born and where his Hall of Famer dad became a star with the Expos. (Note, too, that the younger Guerrero was wearing No. 27, dad's old number.)

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Guerrero's major-league teammates, in particular fellow Canadian Russell Martin, felt the excitement.

And, yes, we have one proud papi . . .

. . . who passed down a pretty effective swing to his son:

On Monday, Guerrero received two standing ovations from the fans at Olympic Stadium, when he went out to third base and when he came up to hit.

One night later, the fans were standing for him again after he hit a game-winning dinger.

Young Vlad may be hitting dingers in the Show before long. He, along with fellow legacy Bo Bichette, is a rising star in the Blue Jays' farm system.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.