Streaking Yankees launch five of six homers in fourth, beat Blue Jays 10-7
NEW YORK — Brett Gardner, DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit homered on consecutive pitches for the New York Yankees — and that was just the start of the night’s power surge.
By the time the Bronx Bombers’ barrage was over, the Yankees had hit a record-setting 1.42 miles of home runs in a three-game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Yankees tied a major league record with five home runs in an inning and hit six overall in a 10-7 win Thursday that extended their winning streak to eight.
“What a show!” Gary Sanchez, who added a seventh-inning homer, said through a translator.
New York set a major league record for most home runs in a threegame span with 19 — three more than the previous high — and became the first team with six or more home runs in three straight games. The Yankees outscored Toronto 4315 over the three games and outhit the Blue Jays 44-28, opening a 2 1/2-game lead over Toronto for second place in the AL East and closing within one game of Minnesota for a first-round playoff series at home.
Voit’s home run that followed Gardner’s and LeMahieu’s in the fourth inning was his major leagueleading 20th. Aaron Hicks struck out, and Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres followed with home runs that gave the Yankees a 9-2 lead and chased Chase Anderson (0-2). The Yankees hit five homers in an inning for the first time, the seventh big league team to achieve the feat.
“That was a lot of fun,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
The Yankees hit 2,005 feet of home runs in the inning, according to Statcast, 2,377 in the game and 7,496 in the series.
Masahiro Tanaka (3-2) allowed three runs and seven hits in seven innings, striking out five. Toronto closed in the ninth against Jonathan Holder before Aroldis Chapman finished for his third save.
Anderson gave up seven runs and eight hits in 2 2/3 innings. He thought he may have been tipping pitches.
“Yeah, I think they put some good swings on all those pitches, so I (was) kind of wondering if I was doing something,” Anderson said.