Lourdes Gurriel Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays hits an RBI single in the fifth inning against the New York Yankees on Friday night.Elsa/Getty Images
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. made an impressive major league debut with two hits and three RBIs as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the New York Yankees 8-5 Friday night.
Teoscar Hernandez homered and drove in three runs and Yangervis Solarte also connected for the Blue Jays, who have won nine of their last 11 games.
Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton broke a 50 at-bat homerless slump with his fourth shot of the season, a drive that put New York ahead 4-2 in the third.
Gurriel was called up from Double-A New Hampshire, where the second baseman was batting .347. The 24-year-old brother of Houston first Yuli Gurriel hit a two-run single in the fourth that gave Toronto a 5-4 lead, then had an RBI single in the fifth that put the Blue Jays ahead to stay at 6-5.
Gurriel signed a seven-year, $22 million deal in November 2016 after defecting the previous February from the Cuban team that was participating in Caribbean World Series in the Dominican Republic.
Toronto starter Marco Estrada (2-1) weaved in and out of trouble over five innings. He was charged with five runs and seven hits, three of them home runs.
Seung Hwan Oh, Danny Barnes and Ryan Tepera each followed with a scoreless inning. Roberto Osuna pitched the ninth for his sixth save in as many chances.
The Blue Jays chased Sonny Gray (1-2) by sending nine batters to the plate in the fourth inning. Gray allowed five hits and five runs in 3 1/3 innings.
After Kendry Morales’ ground-rule double cut the deficit 4-3, Gurriel Jr. picked up his first major league hit, a single past diving shortstop Didi Gregorius.
A solo homer by rookie Miguel Andujar made it 5-all in the home half of the fourth.
Gurriel’s go-ahead hit came against Domingo German.
Tyler Austin hit a two-run in the first off Estrada.