Alex Rodriguez Hits First Homer Since Return In Yankees Loss To Blue Jays
First homer since Sep. 2013, 655th career home run.
Alex Rodrigruez hit his first home run of the season for the New York Yankees since returning from a year long suspension for drug abuse. The Yankees, however, lost the match 6-3 to the Toronto Blue Jays.
The home run was his first since he homered off reliever George Kontos on Sep. 20, 2013. The 39 year old connected on Toronto rookie Daniel Norris, with the fastball ending up deep in the stands in left field. It was the 655th home run of his career. Rodriguez is currently fifth in the all-time list, now just five behind Willie Mays.
The Blue Jays, however, won the match after taking control in the second inning. Edwin Encarnacion hit a home run, which was followed up by singles from Jose Reyes and Kevin Pillar as CC Sabathia struggled.
After John Ryan Murphy scored in the fifth for the Yankees, Donaldson scored to make it 5-1 for the Blue Jays. Rodriguez then homered 400 feet in the sixth innings, and teammate Mark Texiera followed suit two batters to briefly mount a comeback for the Yankees. Reliever Roberto Osuna, however, kept Toronto in control and Encarnacion made it 6-3 in the top of the eight inning with a homer.
Toronto rookie Daniel Norris came in for some attention as he made his first Major League start. He was in the news before the start of the season for his way of living – in his 1978 Volkswagen in a parking lot behind Walmart, cooking on a portable stove despite having signed a multimillion dollar deal with the Blue Jays.
Alex Rodriguez was simply happy to get off the blocks finally. "I felt like I needed a Google map to run the bases, it's been so long. Anything I can do this year is going to be a surprise, even for me," said the 39 year old to reporters after the game.
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