Astros light up Jays, Sanchez early in blowout

Early in Friday’s Blue Jays-Astros game, a fan held up a sign saying his family travelled all the way from South Indian Lake, Man. (3,300 kilometres away) to watch the Jays.

And you wonder why the rest of Canada hates Toronto.

Seriously though, it was an awful night for any fan of the Blue Jays. By the time the second inning was over at Rogers Centre, the Houston Astros had put an eight-spot on the board and cruised to a 12-2 victory over the local heroes.

Most of the damage came as result of a dreadful start by Aaron Sanchez, his first starting assignment since May 19 after coming off the DL for the third time because of blister issues. Blisters didn’t seem to be the problem for Sanchez against the Astros. Neither was velocity. Location appeared to be the issue.

Sanchez was pulled after only 1 ⅔ innings after giving up seven hits, including home runs by George Springer and Carlos Correa, and eight runs. He also walked four. It was the second shortest outing of his career.

The Astros hammered four homers in all against the Jays, including two by The Springer of Rain (if you will), while shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and Ezequiel Carrera both added their sixth home runs of the season, both solo shots, for Toronto. Tulowitzki’s came in the fifth and Carrera’s in the ninth.

Correa extended his hit streak to 15 games with his two-run blast to centre in the first inning.

At first, it looked as though Sanchez was going to survive the shaky start. After giving up bloop singles to Springer and Jose Altuve to start the game, he got Josh Reddick to hit into a double-play. But then Correa stepped up and hit a 2-1 pitch to deep centre.

Sanchez expressed frustration with home plate umpire Dana DeMuth’s strike zone. Manager John Gibbons came out and had a chat with DeMuth between innings.

In the end, even though he was probably squeezed a bit by the ump, it didn’t really matter.

While the first inning was disappointing for Sanchez, the second was a nightmare.

The Astros tacked on six runs as a result of four hits, including a home run by Springer and a double by Evan Gattis, three walks and sloppy defence.

Correa got on base when his slow roller to short was picked up by Tulowitzki, who tossed it to Ryan Goins, but Goins didn’t cover second, thinking Tulowitzki would make the play himself. Goins was originally given an error, but the call was later changed, with the error given to Tulowitzki.

Sanchez threw 55 pitches before being pulled for Mike Bolsinger with two out in the inning.

In the Blue Jays’ half of the inning, Steve Pearce blooped a single to centre, tried to turn it into two, and was thrown out easily at second.

Reddick hit a single in the third to score Springer, giving Houston a 9-0 lead.

Springer, who went 4-for-5 with five RBI in the leadoff spot for the Astros, hit a sacrifice fly to centre in the fifth to score Alex Bregman from third to give Houston an even 10 runs.

Tulowitzki hit his sixth homer of the year off Houston starter Charlie Morton in the fifth, a solo shot to centre, giving the Jays faithful something to cheer about.

Gattis hit the third homer of the night for the Astros, a line drive over the left-field wall to lead off the seventh off Bolsinger.

In the same inning, Springer smashed his second of the game, again to right, the seventh time in his career he has posted a multihome run game.

Morton held the Jays to just four hits over six innings and one run, walking two.

The Jays recorded six hits in total. The Astros recorded 14 hits off Toronto pitchers. SBuffery@postmedia.com Twitter.com/ beezersun