Blue Jays flunk their latest test at home
It was School Day at the Rogers Centre Thursday and the Toronto Blue Jays treated the thousands of kids at the ballpark with the baseball equivalent of the need for a booster shot.
An uninspired 8-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels was telling.
The free-falling Jays are sinking fast. They’re winless in their last seven series (0-5-2), have lost nine of their last 11 games and are 7-15 in May. An upside? After going 1-6 on the recent homestand, they hit the road for nine games starting Friday in Philadelphia.
“Yeah, I’m ready to get on the road,” said Jays manager John Gibbons. “There’s no doubt, this was a brutal homestand for us. We got outplayed and then a couple of tough losses definitely hurt us. We’re going to some places where teams are playing pretty good, but sometimes you need a change of scenery.”
The Jays need a change in a lot of things. The starting pitching has been iffy all season and now the bullpen is showing cracks. The offence is hit and miss.
Jays starter Marco Estrada managed to get through only 41/3 innings, giving up four runs on seven hits. Estrada, who is now 2-5 with a 5.40 ERA, has lost three in a row and hasn’t picked up a win since April 20 in New York.
“I’m not really sure what happened today. I was kind of all over the place,” said the right-hander. “There were a lot of close pitches that I thought could have gone either way which I didn’t get. But plain and simple, I just wasn’t very good today.”
Outfielder Dwight Smith Jr. hit his career-first MLB home run in the sixth. He is now batting .347 with a .407 OBP and .918 OPS in his 22 career games as a Jay.
Angels centre-fielder Mike Trout hit his 15th home run of the season off Estrada. Albert Pujols smacked his seventh homer of the season in the ninth off Deck McGuire.