Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 3-for-4 with a home run, two RBIs and two runs scored and Dylan Cease struck out 12 batters while picking up his first win as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Los Angeles Angels, 5-2, in the opener of a three-game series in Anaheim, Calif.
Guerrero extended his hitting streak to 11 games. Nathan Lukes drove in two runs and Eloy Jimenez had two hits for Toronto, which won its second straight game.
Cease (1-0) allowed two runs on five hits and two walks over five innings and took over the major league lead in strikeouts with 44 with his 12-strikeout effort. He left after throwing 110 pitches, 69 for strikes.
Jeff Hoffman struck out the side in the ninth to pick up his third save.
Nolan Schanuel had a double, a run scored and an RBI and Zach Neto reached base twice with a single and a walk, stole two bases and scored a run for Los Angeles, which struck out 18 times while suffering its third straight defeat.
Reid Detmers (1-2) picked up the loss, allowing four runs on five hits over six innings. He walked two and struck out five.
Los Angeles took a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Schanuel hit a two-out, opposite-field double down the left field line and scored on a single by Jorge Soler.
Toronto took a 2-1 lead in the third on Guerrero’s two-run homer, a 430-foot drive to center that drove in Davis Schneider, who had opened the inning with a walk.
The Angels tied it, 2-2, in the bottom half of the third. Neto led off with a walk, went to second on an infield single by Mike Trout, and advanced to the third on the front end of a double-steal. Schanuel then drove in Neto with a sacrifice fly to center.
The Blue Jays regained the lead, 3-2, in the sixth inning when Guerrero led off with a single and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Lenyn Sosa.
Toronto extended the lead to 4-2 in the seventh on an RBI single by Lukes, and made it 5-2 in the ninth on an RBI groundout by Lukes.
