{"id":628671,"date":"2026-04-25T23:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T23:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/628671\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T23:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T23:08:08","slug":"kazuma-okamoto-homers-for-second-straight-game-as-toronto-blue-jays-beat-cleveland-guardians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/628671\/","title":{"rendered":"Kazuma Okamoto homers for second straight game as Toronto Blue Jays beat Cleveland Guardians"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Kazuma Okamoto homered for the second straight game, Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez hit a two-run single and the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> beat the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> 5-3 on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Daulton Varsho<\/a> had the tiebreaking hit in Toronto\u2019s three-run sixth inning as the Blue Jays won for just the second time in eight games against AL Central opponents.<\/p>\n

Kevin Gausman<\/a> (2-1) allowed two runs and six hits in 6 2\/3 innings to win his second straight start as the Blue Jays bounced back from Friday\u2019s 8-6 loss.<\/p>\n

Mason Fluharty<\/a> got one out, Tyler Rogers<\/a> worked the eighth and Louis Varland<\/a> survived a rocky ninth inning for his second save in two chances despite allowing pinch hitter Kyle Manzardo<\/a>\u2019s RBI double. Varland struck out Brayan Rocchio<\/a> for the final out, leaving the bases loaded.<\/p>\n

Okamoto went 2 for 3 with two RBIs and scored twice. He homered in the fourth, singled and scored in the sixth and drove in a run with a bases-loaded walk in the seventh.<\/p>\n

David Fry<\/a> hit a solo home run, his first, but Cleveland couldn\u2019t manage to win back-to-back games for the fourth time. The Guardians have yet to win three straight in 2026.<\/p>\n

Cleveland opened the scoring in the third on Rocchio\u2019s RBI grounder.<\/p>\n

Okamoto tied it with a 425-foot drive to center off Joey Cantillo<\/a> to begin the fourth, his fifth.<\/p>\n

Cantillo (1-1) allowed three runs and six hits in five-plus innings, leaving after back-to-back singles by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a> and Okamoto to begin the sixth.<\/p>\n

Matt Festa<\/a> came on and struck out pinch hitter Jes\u00fas S\u00e1nchez but Varsho grounded an RBI single past second baseman Brito.<\/p>\n

One out later, Gim\u00e9nez blooped a two-run double that landed on the left field foul line and skipped past a sliding George Valera<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

LHP Patrick Corbin<\/a> (0-0, 3.68 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Blue Jays on Sunday against Guardians RHP Slade Cecconi<\/a> (0-3, 6.20).<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Ian Harrison, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Kazuma Okamoto homered for the second straight game, Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez hit a two-run single and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-628671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628671","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=628671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}