By MATT PIKE
Acquired by the Kansas City Royals just minutes before Thursday's 5pm deadline, outfielder Mike Yastrzemski joined the Royals in Toronto on Friday making his debut in right field, and homering in his first at bat to give Kansas City the lead on way to a 9-3 series opening victory.
The Blue Jays got on the board in the first inning, with two outs Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hitting a solo home run off Michael Wacha. In the second inning though, with one out and Maikel Garcia on second base after his leadoff single and a stolen base, Yastrzemski stepped to the plate for the first time as a Royal and homered to right center field giving Kansas City a 2-1 lead.
In the third inning, the Royals added three more runs. Kyle Isbel singled leading off the inning and Jonathan India followed that up with a double, before Bobby Witt Jr hit his 16th home run of the season to left field to extend the Kansas City lead to 5-1.
After giving up the home run and a double in the first inning, Wacha went on to retire 21 of the next 23 batters he faced through the game, only surrendering a single to Bo Bichette in the fourth inning and having Ernie Clement reach first on a throwing error by Witt Jr. Wacha would be replaced by Thomas Hatch in the ninth inning.
Before Hatch came to the mound though, the Royals extended their lead more in the top half of the ninth behind more home runs. Salvador Perez hit a solo shot to lead off the inning. Then, with Randal Grichuk on first base, Adam Frazier hit his fourth home run of the season to push Kansas City ahead more. Later, with the bases loaded, the final run was driven in by Garcia with an RBI single, scoring Isbel who singled after the Frazier home run.
Against Hatch in the bottom half of the inning, Joey Loperfido doubled to lead off the inning, and later scored with two outs as Addison Barger hit a two run home run to right field for the final runs of the game. Hatch struck out Ty France to end the game.
Wacha improved to 5-9 on the season earning the win, pitching eight innings and giving up three hits and one run while striking out five. At the plate, Garcia was 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored. Isbel was 2-for-4 with two runs scored. In his debut, Yastrzemski was 1-for-3 with the home run and two RBIs.
Kansas City and Toronto continue their series tomorrow. Noah Cameron (5-4, 2.44 ERA) takes the mound for the Royals against Max Scherzer (1-1, 4.89 ERA) for the Blue Jays. First pitch is at 2:07pm, pregame coverage will begin at 1:30 on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt.