NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge hit his major league-leading 54th home run, connecting for the third straight day and sending the New York Yankees over the Minnesota Twins 5-2 on Monday.
Judge has homered in five of his last seven games for the AL East leaders. He snapped a 2-2 tie in the sixth inning when he hit a 3-1 slider from Trevor Megill (3-2) into the second deck in left.
The All-Star slugger reached 54 homers in his 131st game. He is on pace to hit 65 homers, four more than Roger Maris’ AL record in 1961.
Judge, who also doubled, followed Gary Sánchez’s 473-foot, two-run homer into the left field bleachers off Jameson Taillon in the fifth that tied it at 2.
Marwin Gonzalez also homered for the Yankees, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa added his second homer this year in the seventh.
Greg Weissert (2-0) pitched 1 1/3 innings for his second career win. Clay Holmes earned his 19th save.
BLUE JAYS 7, ORIOLES 3, 1ST GAME
BALTIMORE (AP) — Kevin Gausman made a triumphant return to Camden Yards and Teoscar Hernández homered, leading Toronto past Baltimore in the opener of a doubleheader.
Gausman (11-9) allowed two runs and seven hits in 6 2/3 innings in his first start at Baltimore since he was traded from the Orioles to Atlanta in 2018.
Toronto won its fourth in a row and increased its lead over Baltimore for the AL’s third wild card to 3½ games.
Anthony Santander homered from both sides of the plate for Baltimore. Adley Rutschman had two hits and scored a run.
George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette hit consecutive RBI singles against rookie DL Hall as Toronto broke the game open in the ninth inning.
Mike Baumann (1-3), who served as Baltimore’s 29th man for the doubleheader, yielded three runs in five innings in his first major league start.
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