Yankees beat San Francisco 5-0 as Aaron Judge hits 422-foot homer

March 30 (UPI) -- Reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge, who led MLB with 62 home runs in 2022, clubbed baseball's first blast of 2023, sending a 422-foot bomb over the left center field fence Thursday at Yankee Stadium in New York.

Judge hit the solo shot off an 0-1 sinker from San Francisco Giants starter Logan Webb in the bottom of the first inning of the 5-0 victory.

Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole walked Giants utility man LaMonte Wade in the first exchange of the game. He struck out the next three hitters to escape the inning unscathed.

Webb struck out Yankees second baseman D.J. LeMahieu to start the bottom of the inning. Judge then walked to the plate to face the right-handed pitcher.

Webb started the exchange with a low-and-outside sinker, which kissed the strike zone and resulted in an 0-1 count. His second sinker drifted into the middle of the zone.

Judge got under the pitch and belted the ball into Monument Park. The solo home run traveled 109.3 mph off his bat, according to Statcast.

Judge struck out in his next two at-bats. Yankees catcher Gleber Torres hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth for a 3-0 lead.

LeMahieu hit an RBI single in the seventh for a fourth Yankees run. Judge followed with another RBI single for the final run of the day.

Judge went 2 for 4 with two RBIs, two strikeouts and a run scored. He was the only Yankees player with more than one hit.

Cole allowed just three hits over six shutout innings. He logged 11 strikeouts en route to his first win of the season.

Giants second baseman Thairo Estrada went 2 for 4 in the loss.

The Yankees will host the Giants in the second game of the series at 4:05 p.m. EDT Saturday at Yankee Stadium.