Jays slide continues with big loss
Toronto — If the Toronto Blue Jays weren’t embarrassed by their play last night they never will be.
Poor pitching and shoddy defence — five errors folks — defined their play giving the 34,515 in attendance the impression they took the night off, mentally checked out.
When the carnage ended the L.A. Dodgers would total 16 hits and leave the field laughing with a 14-5 crush job in their pocket.
On the mound, it was another Jekyll and Hyde outing from starter Josh Johnson.
Too much Hyde and not enough Jekyll.
Pitching out of the full windup, Johnson can be dominating, hitting his spots with great finish on his pitches.
But as soon as a runner gets on base, things start to happen — bad things.
For whatever reason, Johnson doesn’t resemble the same pitcher when he throws out of the stretch and against the Dodgers Monday night, that sad trend continued.
After breezing through a 1-2-3 opening inning, Johnson struck out Hanley Ramirez to start the second.
Andre Ethier followed with a double to right centre and before the inning ended 10 Dodgers went to the plate and four runs came home.
The Jays and Johnson never recovered from the setback and the clunker left them with their fifth consecutive loss.
The streaking Dodgers, meanwhile, are on a 21-5 run.
It was a terrible game for the Jays in every which way and the five errors were one shy of the club record for those of you counting at home.
Since those heady days of their 11-game win streak in June, the Jays have gone 7-17 and now are eight games below .500 at 45-53.
Their free-fall shows no signs of ending, for the team or Johnson, who now has just one win on the season against six losses and a 5.66 ERA in 13 starts.
It was simply just a dreadful performance from Johnson as following the four-run second, he did not retire any of the first three batters he faced in the third and was lifted for lefty reliever Aaron Loup.
Skip Schumaker was the final batter he faced and he was awarded first on a catcher’s interference call against J.P. Arencibia.
Johnson’s line for the game was two innings plus three batters, five runs on seven hits, one walk and two strikeouts. He threw 67 pitches.
Sadly, it did not represent his worst outing of the year.
Back on April 11 in Detroit, the big right-hander lasted just 1.1 innings, allowing six runs on seven hits.
After Ethier opened the flood gates with his double, A.J. Ellis rocketed a home run to centre on a 3-1 offering. It was the fifth homer of the season for the Dodgers catcher.
One out later, Johnson hit Juan Uribe on the forearm requiring him to once again pitch out of the stretch. Once again disaster followed. Mark Ellis singled up the middle, as did Carl Crawford, who drove in their third run.
Flashy rookie Yasiel Puig followed with another RBI single to score the fourth L.A. run.
In the third, Ethier opened the inning with his second double of the game and Ellis followed with an RBI single to centre.
After Schumaker brushed Arencibia’s glove with his swing allowing him to reach first, Gibbons said ‘ No mas’ removed Johnson and replaced him with Loup.
Loup retired the first two batters, gave up an infield single to Carl Crawford to load the bases and then struck out Puig to keep the damage to a run.
Trailing 5-0, the Jays came back for a pair of runs in the third.
With two out Edwin Encarnacion reached on an infield single and Adam Lind walked.
Melky Cabrera and Mark DeRosa followed with a pair of RBI singles. But with runners on the corners, Colby Rasmus struck out to end the inning.
On the road this season Blue Jays fans have made their presence known.
One of the livelier groups appeared on the last road trip in Cleveland and out-chanted the home side coming up with the witty refrain of “We’ve got health care.”
Last night the shoe was on the other foot as down the right-field line sat a large and vocal Korean crowd who were waving flags and going ga-ga with Hyun-Jin Ryu making the start for the Dodgers.
It was strange, though, to hear them chant: ‘U.S.A, U.S.A., U.S.A.’ which was soon drowned out by a chorus of boos by home side.