Kyle Gibson
By IAN HARRISON
Associated Press
TORONTO (AP) — José Berríos pitched seven strong innings to win his seventh straight start, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drove in his 500th career run and scored twice, and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the St. Louis Cardinals 7-2 on Saturday.
Greenfield’s Kyle Gibson, the starting pitcher for the Cardinals, suffered the loss.
Jordan Walker hit a solo home run, his third of the season, for the Cardinals. St. Louis came in 9-4 against AL East foes. They last lost a series to an AL East team by dropping two of three at Boston in June, 2022.
Walker opened the scoring with a two-out homer in the third, but Davis Schneider tied it by connecting off Gibson in the bottom half for his 11th home run and first since June 22.
Toronto took the lead with a four-run sixth. After the Blue Jays used a single and two walks to load the bases, Gibson exited after shortstop Masyn Winn’s throwing error on Ernie Clement’s grounder allowed the tiebreaking run to score.
Ryan Fernandez came on and gave up Alejandro Kirk’s RBI groundout, and run-scoring singles by Addison Barger and Schneider.
Gibson (8-7) allowed five runs – one earned – and four hits in 5 1/3 innings. He walked three and struck out one.
“It’s unfortunate how the outing ended,” Gibson said. “Overall I felt pretty good, just wish I could have avoided those two walks there in the sixth.”
Guerrero went 1 for 3 with a walk, maintaining his batting average at .320, the third-highest in the AL.
“This year he’s separated himself and been on a different level offensively,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said of Guerrero. “He’s a really good hitter who understands how to drive in runs.”
Guerrero, 25, is the youngest player in Blue Jays history to drive in 500 runs. He reached the mark in 806 games.
Schneider went 3 for 4 with a home run and drove in two as Toronto won its second straight.
Barger had two hits and an RBI and Kirk drove in a pair as the Blue Jays handed the Cardinals their first series loss against an AL East opponent in more than two years.
St. Louis lost for the fifth time in eight games and fell back to .500 at 74-74. The Cardinals began the day seven games out of the third NL wild card.
Gibson’s next schedule start is slated for Friday, in St. Louis, against the Cleveland Guardians. Ben Lively (12-9, 3.87) is slated to go for Cleveland.
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| St. Louis | Toronto | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ab | r | h | bi | ab | r | h | bi | ||||
| Totals | 30 | 2 | 3 | 2 | Totals | 34 | 7 | 10 | 6 | ||
| Winn ss | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Springer rf | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Burleson dh | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Lukes cf | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | ||
| Goldschmidt 1b | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guerrero 1b | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Baker ph | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Horwitz dh | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Arenado 3b | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Clement ss | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Fermín ph | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Kirk c | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Donovan lf | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Barger 3b-lf | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | ||
| Saggese 2b | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Schneider 2b | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | ||
| Nootbaar cf | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Loperfido lf | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Pagés c | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | De Los Santos 3b | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Walker rf | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| St. Louis | 001 | 000 | 001 | — | 2 |
| Toronto | 001 | 004 | 20x | — | 7 |
E_Winn (15). DP_St. Louis 1, Toronto 0. LOB_St. Louis 3, Toronto 7. 2B_Burleson (19), Loperfido (7). 3B_Lukes (2). HR_Walker (3), Schneider (11).
| IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
|---|
| St. Louis | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gibson L,8-7 | 5 | 1-3 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Fernandez | 2-3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| O’Brien | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Toronto | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berríos W,16-9 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |
| Burr | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| Frías | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Umpires_Home, Dan Bellino; First, Phil Cuzzi; Second, Tony Randazzo; Third, Alex Tosi.
T_2:32. A_33,999 (39,150).
