{"id":565837,"date":"2026-03-28T04:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565837\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T04:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:38:07","slug":"gimenez-has-winning-hit-in-ninth-as-blue-jays-beat-as-3-2-in-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565837\/","title":{"rendered":"Gim\u00e9nez has winning hit in ninth as Blue Jays beat A&#8217;s 3-2 in opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez drove in the winning run with a two-out single in the ninth inning and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Athletics 3-2 on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>Gim\u00e9nez had three RBIs, including a two-run triple in the fifth.<\/p>\n<p>Athletics catcher Shea Langeliers hit two home runs, including a game-tying blast off Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman (1-0) in the top of the ninth, but Toronto used three straight hits off Justin Sterner (0-1) to win it in the bottom half.<\/p>\n<p>Japanese infielder Kazuma Okamoto singled, went to third on Ernie Clement&#8217;s high-bouncing double over third base, and scored when Gim\u00e9nez grounded a base hit up the middle.<\/p>\n<p>Making his major league debut after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/kazuma-okamoto-blue-jays-mlb-d4542c52b3c883f618c23b5081bb1f6c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">signing with the Blue Jays in January<\/a>, Okamoto finished 2 for 3. He struck out swinging in his first at-bat, walked and scored Toronto&#8217;s first run of the season in a two-run fifth, then lined his first hit in the seventh.<\/p>\n<p>Hoffman\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays-score-a9daf1f7ebdd75d5e7bf85d5e7ba22b9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">blew the save in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2025 World Series<\/a>\u00a0when he gave up a game-tying homer to Miguel Rojas.<\/p>\n<p>Friday&#8217;s tying homer came one batter after Toronto successfully challenged umpire Marvin Hudson&#8217;s two-strike call on Nick Kurtz to begin the ninth, with Kurtz called out on strikes.<\/p>\n<p>Before Friday&#8217;s game, Blue Jays sluggers George Springer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stood at home plate to address fans, then counted down to the unveiling of a banner celebrating Toronto&#8217;s first American League pennant since 1993.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Gausman set a Blue Jays opening day record by striking out 11 batters in six innings. Gausman allowed one run and one hit.<\/p>\n<p>Gausman didn&#8217;t walk a batter in his third career opening day start, his first with Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>Langeliers had the lone hit off Gausman, a solo homer in the fourth.<\/p>\n<p>The A&#8217;s lost for the fifth time in their past six opening day games.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>RHP Dylan Cease makes his Blue Jays debut Saturday afternoon against Athletics LHP Jeffrey Springs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez drove in the winning run with a two-out single in the ninth inning and the Toronto&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[495,49,48,462,82,507],"class_list":{"0":"post-565837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}