Vladimir Guerrero has returned to Anaheim.
But, alas, not the Angels.
The Toronto Blue Jays granted the former Halo slugger his wish to be released from a $1.3 million minor league contract after he left the AAA Las Vegas 51s late Monday night to return to the town he calls home.
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Vlady has been tearing it up since Toronto signed the 37-year-old to a minor league contract May 10. He hit .450 (9-for-20) with four homers and eight
RBIs for the franchise's single-A club during spring training, and .303 with four RBIs through eight games with the 51s. He even went 4-for-5 and drove in two runs in a 13-3 win over Tucson Monday night.
The 2004 American League MVP with the Angels also didn't do too shabby at his last big league destination, Baltimore, hitting .290 with a .416 slugging percentage in 145 games with the Orioles last season. In 16 major league seasons, Guerrero has a .318 average with 449 homers an
1,496 RBIs.
Toronto's general manager Alex Anthopoulos reportedly said Tuesday night Guerrero is close to being ready to return to a big league roster and believes, “There's no question he's going
to have opportunities, no doubt about it.”
A short stop for a little home cookin' can't hurt.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.