By Canadian Press

Guerrero’s 11th homer in Bronx leads Jays over Yanks 6-1

Apr 21, 2023 | 8:30 PM

NEW YORK (AP) — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put Toronto ahead in the first inning with his 11th home run in the Bronx and Brandon Belt drove in four runs to lead the Blue Jays over the New York Yankees 6-1 Friday night.

Yusei Kikuchi (3-0) allowed one run and four hits in six innings and has a 1.91 ERA over five starts and one relief appearance at Yankee Stadium. Erik Swanson, Trevor Richards and Yimi García finished a five-hitter.

Wearing powder blue uniforms, Toronto went ahead against Domingo Germán (1-2) when George Springer doubled on the game’s first pitch and two batters later Guerrero hit a drive into the visitors bullpen in left-centre for his fourth home run this season. Guerrero is batting .301 (37 for 123) in 32 games at Yankee Stadium.

“Since you are a little kid, you dream of playing at Yankee Stadium,” the 24-year-old son of Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said through a translator before the game. “Yankee Stadium is always a stadium you want to go to, you want to perform, you want to hit. That’s the mentality all the time when I come here.”

Belt hit a two-run homer in the sixth and a two-run double against Albert Abreu in the eighth, a ball off the arm of a lunging Aaron Judge in right. Belt had gone 38 games without a home run since July 17 for San Francisco off Milwaukee’s Jason Alexander.

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Oswaldo Cabrera hit his first home run of the season, an opposite-field drive to right in the second. The Yankees didn’t get another runner past first base.

New York has lost five straight series openers after winning its first two. The Yankees entered the three-game weekend series with five series wins and one split.

Germán gave up four runs, five hits and two walks in six innings, retiring 12 in a row at one point and striking out six. In his previous outing, umpires found he had excessive sticky substance on his pitching hand but allowed him to clea his hand and remain in the game.

LATE SPARKS

Tensions between the division rivals boiled over with two outs in the ninth inning when Guerrero was hit on the left elbow by Greg Weissert’s 93 m.p.h. sinker. Guerrero appeared to argue briefly with both Weissert and first baseman Anthony Rizzo as he slowly strolled to take his base. Although both managers began to walk onto the field, the benches and bullpens did not empty. 

NEW SPOT

Oswald Peraza started at third for the Yankees, his first professional game at the position.

UP NEXT

Blue Jays RHP Alek Manoah (1-1, 6.98 ERA) is 2-0 with a 1.52 ERA in four starts at Yankee Stadium going into his outing Saturday against RHP Gerrit Cole (4-0, 0.95 ERA), coming off a shutout of Minnesota.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Scott Orgera, The Associated Press