Tristan Gray hits 3-run homer as Twins rough up Max Scherzer, beat Blue Jays 8-2

TORONTO (AP) — Tristan Gray hit a three-run home run, Kody Clemens added a solo shot and the Minnesota Twins beat the Toronto Blue Jays 8-2 on Sunday.

Taj Bradley (3-0) allowed one run and five hits in five innings to win his third straight start as the Twins took two of three from Toronto, bouncing back after failing to hold a 4-0 lead in Friday’s opener. Minnesota has won six of seven.

Bradley’s ERA rose from 1.08 to 1.25. He walked four and struck out seven.

Gray homered in the second, his second, and Clemens connected in a five-run third, his second. Victor Caratini had a sacrifice fly and Brooks Lee added a two-run double as the Twins roughed up three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer.

The Twins have homered in 26 consecutive games in Toronto, hitting 55 total homers in that span. Their most recent homerless game in Toronto was Aug. 25, 2017.

Scherzer (1-2) allowed eight runs and five hits in 2 1/3 innings, his second straight losing start. He left his previous outing, last Monday against the Dodgers, after two innings because of forearm tendinitis.

The Blue Jays played without leadoff hitter George Springer, who went on the 10-day injured list before the game because of a fractured left big toe. Springer fouled a ball off his foot in Saturday’s 7-4 loss.

Ernie Clement took over in the leadoff spot. He went 3 for 5 and scored twice.

Eloy Jiménez was promoted from Triple-A Buffalo to replace Springer and started at designated hitter. Jiménez went 2 for 4.

Twins: RHP Bailey Ober (1-0, 5.27 ERA) is scheduled to start against Boston on Monday. LHP Garrett Crochet (2-1, 3.12) goes for the Red Sox.

Blue Jays: RHP Kevin Gausman (0-1, 2.08 ERA) is scheduled to start at Milwaukee on Tuesday against Brewers RHP Jacob Misiorowski 1-1, 3.31).

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Toronto Blue Jays' Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hits a single against the Minnesota Twins during seventh-inning baseball game action in Toronto, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer, second from left, is pulled by manager John Schneider, right, during third-inning baseball game action against the Minnesota Twins in Toronto, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

Minnesota Twins' Kody Clemens, foreground, rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during third-inning baseball game action in Toronto, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

Minnesota Twins pitcher Taj Bradley throws against the Toronto Blue Jays during first-inning baseball game action in Toronto, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

Minnesota Twins' Kody Clemens (2) celebrates with teammate Trevor Larnach (9) after hitting a solo home run during third-inning baseball game action against the Toronto Blue Jays in Toronto, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar spent most of his professional life moving comfortably within the political world built by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. On Sunday, he brought that system down.

The 45-year-old lawyer and leader of the opposition Tisza party has charted a meteoric political rise since bursting into public view in early 2024. He galvanized large numbers of voters across Hungary who gave him a powerful mandate in Sunday's election, ending Orbán’s 16-year grip on power.

“Together we liberated Hungary, we took back our country,” Magyar told tens of thousands of his jubilant supporters at a victory party alongside the Danube River in Budapest, the country's capital, late on Sunday night.

“You gave us a mandate to build a functioning and humane home for all of us,” he said to thundering cheers from the jubilant crowd.

Before emerging as the prime minister’s most effective critic, Magyar spent years inside the governing elite. A member of Orbán’s nationalist-populist Fidesz party since 2002, he moved easily within its political ecosystem, holding senior posts at state-run institutions and rubbing elbows with figures at the center of power.

While some of Magyar’s supporters are wary of his former ties to the ruling party, others believed only someone who has seen Orbán’s system from the inside can bring it down.

Magyar's personal life has faced scrutiny. His ex-wife, Judit Varga, accused him of abusive behavior during their marriage. Magyar has denied the allegations, saying they were part of a political campaign to discredit him after he turned against the ruling party.

His rise energized a broad segment of Hungarian society that, disenchanted with previous generations of fragmented and ineffectual opposition parties, has long sought a viable alternative to Orbán.

While Orbán has campaigned on a myriad external threats facing Hungary, like the war in neighboring Ukraine, Magyar has focused on bread-and-butter issues that affect ordinary Hungarians: inflation, low wages, the deterioration of public health care and transportation, and endemic corruption.

While Magyar has succeeded in mobilizing Orbán critics from across the political spectrum, support for him is not always rooted in ideological alignment. Some liberal voters remain wary of his combative style and conservative views.

Hoping to avoid mistakes by previous opposition leaders who gave Fidesz ammunition for attacks, Magyar has carefully avoided taking firm positions on a number of divisive issues like Orbán’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies and whether Hungary should extend more support to Ukraine.

Magyar has described himself as drawn to politics from an early age. As a child growing up during the final years of communist rule, he admired Orbán and his circle of young liberal democrats who were challenging Soviet domination at the end of the Cold War.

Magyar has said he watched parliamentary debates on television while in grade school and attended political demonstrations with his parents. Immersed in conservative politics, Magyar joined Fidesz in 2002 at 21, and formed friendships with other rising figures in the party including Gergely Gulyás, who would later become Orbán’s chief of staff.

After graduating with a law degree from a Catholic university in 2003, Magyar began working as a lawyer. In 2006, while Fidesz was in opposition, he provided pro bono legal representation to anti-government demonstrators arrested during violent protests against the then-Socialist government.

That same year, he married fellow lawyer Judit Varga, who would later become one of Orbán’s most prominent ministers. The couple moved to Brussels in 2009, where Varga worked advising a Hungarian member of the European Parliament.

During their years abroad, alongside a stint as a stay-at-home father for their three children, Magyar worked for Hungary's Foreign Ministry and as a diplomat with its permanent representation to the European Union.

After returning to Hungary with his family in 2018, Magyar moved into leadership roles at several state-affiliated institutions. Meanwhile, Varga’s star was rising within Fidesz, and she was appointed justice minister in 2019. Alongside Katalin Novák, an Orbán ally who in 2022 became Hungary’s youngest president and the first woman to hold the office, Varga was widely seen as a possible successor to Orbán.

But a political scandal in 2024 was soon to change Magyar’s personal and political trajectory, and fundamentally transform Hungarian politics.

After returning from Brussels, Magyar's relationship with Varga deteriorated, and the couple divorced in 2023.

The following year, Varga was implicated in a scandal that rocked Hungary when it emerged that President Novák had granted a pardon to a convicted accomplice in a child sexual abuse case. The decision shocked the country and led to Novák's resignation, while Varga, who had endorsed the pardon, also stepped down.

The next day, Magyar gave a lengthy interview to the popular Hungarian YouTube channel Partizán in which he publicly broke with Fidesz, accusing Orbán’s government of systemic corruption and operating in the interests of a small circle of political and economic elites.

The interview quickly went viral, drawing more than 2 million views in a country of fewer than 10 million, and transformed Magyar from a relatively obscure insider into a national political figure overnight.

In the weeks that followed, he intensified his criticism of the government and began organizing public events. On March 15, Hungary’s national holiday, he addressed thousands of supporters in Budapest and announced plans to launch a new political movement that would later become the Tisza party.

In June that year, Tisza won 30% of the vote in European Parliament elections, and Magyar became an EU lawmaker.

In interviews since entering politics, Magyar has portrayed himself as someone who often voiced dissent even while working within the Fidesz system, saying he regularly expressed criticism and pushed for internal debate.

Beyond the substance of his criticism of Orbán’s rule, Magyar has developed a level of political celebrity that, not counting Orbán, is rarely seen in Hungarian politics. After his rallies, crowds often surge toward the stage to take selfies with him, waiting patiently as he poses for photos with supporters one by one.

FILE - Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider that broke ranks with the party in February, poses for a portrait after an interview with The Associated Press in Vac, Hungary, on May 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)

FILE - Former Hungarian government insider Peter Magyar gives a speech next tot Kossut Lajos Square on Tuesdy, in Budapest, Hungary, March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)

FILE - Péter Magyar, the former husband of one-time justice minister and Orbán ally Judit Varga meets with people in the crowd after his speech on Hungary's National Day in Budapest on Friday, March 15. 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)