Yankees rout Giants to open MLB season

NEW YORK (AFP) — The New York Yankees crushed the San Francisco Giants, 7-0, on Wednesday in the only matchup of Major League Baseball’s opening night.

The game at the Giants’ Oracle Park was a curtain raiser to Thursday’s 11-game slate, including Shohei Ohtani’s Los Angeles Dodgers launching their bid for a World Series three-peat as they host the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge went hitless on opening day for the first time, the reigning American League Most Valuable Player striking out in his first four at-bats.

Judge, coming off a World Baseball Classic in which the US team he captained fell to Venezuela in the final, became the first reigning Most Valuable Player to strike out four times in his team’s first game of a season.

Along with that dubious first the contest featured the first use of the Automatic Ball-Strike system — the so-called “robot umpires” — in a Major League game.

The system allows players to challenge an umpire’s call of whether a pitch is a ball or a strike.

New York’s Jose Caballero challenged a fourth-inning called strike from Logan Webb which was confirmed.

Caballero had singled in a run in a five-run second inning that also included Trent Grisham’s two-run triple as the Yankees pummeled Giants starter Webb.

Ryan McMahon added a two-run single in the frame.

Giancarlo Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr. also drove in runs off Webb, who gave up seven runs in five innings.

The Yankees’ potent bats allowed starting pitcher Max Fried to roll to a win, despite an erratic first inning that began with a four-pitch walk to leadoff hitter Luis Arraez.

Fried pitched 6 1/3 scoreless innings, giving up two hits and a walk and striking out four.