TORONTO — Before Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s ill-fated dash home and before Ernie Clement’s drive to left that Andy Pages, a rare mid-inning defensive sub, sprinted 123 feet to snare, there was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. versus Blake Snell to open that wild bottom of the ninth.

Given the chaos that followed, it’s an at-bat that’s largely remained out of the Game 7 discourse, a 377-foot drive to centre field, calmy corralled by Tommy Edman for the inning’s first out, seemingly no big whoop. 

But, like so much from that all-timer Game 7, there’s more to the story. 

Guerrero was up 3-0 in the count. He sat changeup and got one. He let loose the swing he wanted, too, sending the pitch out at 100.5 m.p.h. — only at the last second, the ball moved off the barrel just enough to avoid full impact.

“An inch,” he said with disdain, the difference so marginal between a walk-off homer to win the World Series and a frustrating footnote in a forever-haunting loss. “When he released that ball, it was exactly where I was looking for it. It had to be God to move that ball away a little bit from me. That's just the way it is.”

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A harsh reality, one Guerrero and his Toronto Blue Jays teammates have had to learn to live with in the 145 days between that 5-4 Los Angeles Dodgers victory Nov. 1 and Friday night’s season opener against the visiting Athletics. Coverage on Sportsnet and Sportsnet begins with Blue Jays Central at 5:30 p.m. ET / 2:30 p.m. PT before first pitch at 7:07 p.m. ET / 4:07 p.m. PT.

Guerrero’s near-miss, along with the rest of that game’s craziness, “was all I was thinking about” throughout the off-season,” he........

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