Yankees crush Giants as new MLB season kicks off

(AFP) The New York Yankees defeated the San Francisco Giants 7x0 on Wednesday in the only game of the opening day of Major League Baseball (MLB).

In front of 40,000 fans in San Francisco, the Bronx Bombers displayed the firepower with which they aspire to return to the World Series after their disappointing last playoffs.

The New York batters pounded out seven runs and nine hits against starter Logan Webb over his five innings on the mound.

On the other side, Max Fried kept the home team in check over 6.1 innings, allowing just two hits and recording four strikeouts.

Aaron Judge, the Yankees' lead-off man, had a lackluster debut, striking out in four of his five at-bats.

Judge needs to regain confidence after the fiasco of the U.S. team he captained this month in the World Baseball Classic, in which they lost in the final to Venezuela.

Panama's José Caballero opened the scoring with a double to left field in the second inning that drove in veteran Giancarlo Stanton's first run.

The Yankees racked up five runs in that second inning and two more in the fifth, none of them via home run.

Venezuelan Luis Arráez, the Giants' starter, managed one hit and one base on balls in his three appearances.

The new course of The Majors will pick up speed Thursday with an 11-game schedule, which includes the debut of Shohei Ohtani's Los Angeles Dodgers.

The reigning two-time champions will host the Arizona Diamondbacks with Japanese starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto taking the mound, the MVP of last year’s World Series, which was won in Game 7 against the Toronto Blue Jays.