Guerrero Jr. takes over MLB home run lead as Blue Jays dominate 1st-place Rays

Fresh from delivering a weekend beatdown in Baltimore, the surging Toronto Blue Jays picked up where they left off Monday against Tampa Bay.

"They created momentum early and we just had no answers," said Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier. "It was a good old-fashioned butt whuppin' to be honest." Toronto scored four runs in the fourth and tacked on three more in the fifth inning. The Blue Jays extended their winning streak to four games — scoring a whopping 52 runs along the way — and have won 12 of their last 13 games overall. Manoah had the Rays handcuffed all evening, retiring the first 14 batters he faced before a giving up a single to Joey Wendle in the fifth inning. The rookie right-hander had 10 strikeouts, hit a batter and didn't issue a walk. "It felt amazing man, just going out there and competing," Manoah said. "It's a lot easier to pitch when you've got an 8-0 lead." In the sixth, Guerrero belted a 3-1 pitch just inside the left-field foul pole to move ahead of Angels slugger Shohei Ohtani in the home run race. The line drive came off a 97-m.p.h. fastball from Adam Conley and had a game-high exit velocity of 113.9 m.p.h. The ball's launch angle was just 15 degrees, tied for the lowest on a fence-clearing homer this season.