On Tuesday in Anaheim, the Blue Jays were attempting to string together their first three-game win streak since they opened the season as reigning American League champions.<\/p>\n
In the process, they also were attempting to capture their first series win since the opening weekend against the visiting Athletics.<\/p>\n
Not much has gone right for the Jays in the intervening weeks, a stretch that has seen the club experience almost as many injuries as wins, losing six successive series.<\/p>\n
To suggest the club has rediscovered its mojo would be a stretch. But fashioning a 4-2 win over the host Los Angeles Angels in a tightly contested Tuesday night tussle should inspire confidence, while also providing some much-needed comfort, not to mention relief given the wild events of the ninth inning.<\/p>\n
The following are three takeaways on a night the Jays scored three runs in the eighth inning to break a 1-1 tie, then saw closer Jeff Hoffman become unhinged in the ninth and mercifully lifted as Louis Varland was asked to record his first big-league save, a milestone reached when his only pitch led to a game-ending double play.<\/p>\n
NERVOUS NINTH<\/p>\n
Fresh off securing his third save of the year during Monday\u2019s series-opening win, Hoffman was given the opportunity to build some much-needed momentum.<\/p>\n
Handed a three-run cushion in the eighth inning on Tuesday, Hoffman appeared on his way to back-to-back saves after getting dangerous Angels leadoff man Zach Neto to strike out swinging. Then the trouble started. After Trout singled, Hoffman plunked both Jo Adell and Jorge Soler with mid-90s sinkers to load the bases. Yoan Moncada then yanked an outside splitter into right field to make it 4-2.<\/p>\n
This time, however, manager John Schneider wasn\u2019t waiting around. Hoffman was pulled, fireballer Varland came in and, on his first pitch, crossed up Nolan Schanuel with a changeup that was turned into a second-short-first double play.<\/p>\n
VLAD TO THE BONE<\/p>\n
Angel Stadium was the site of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.\u2019s first road game when he broke into the big leagues in 2019, and is the former home of his Hall of Fame dad.<\/p>\n
Vladdy returned to Anaheim riding an 11-game hit streak, going 20-for-44 in that span. Things didn\u2019t start out well for him, though, as he grounded into an inning-ending double play to end the first and lined out to third to lead off the fourth.<\/p>\n
The face of the franchise finally made his mark in the sixth with an infield single to third, then drawing an intentional walk in the eighth. Both times, he came around to score, finishing the night 1-for-3 without hitting the ball out of the infield, slightly lowering his season batting average to .353.<\/p>\n
The big blow for the Jays on this night was a two-run double in the eighth by Jesus Sanchez, while callup Eloy Jimenez also chipped in with a pair of RBIs on a sac fly and a single.<\/p>\n
BIG FISH, SMALL POND<\/p>\n
The Angels have toiled playing in the shadow of the nearby Dodgers, the two-time defending champions whose roster is dotted with marquee names.<\/p>\n
Mike Trout used to have Shohei Ohtani as a teammate with the Angels, but the club never reached the stage where it captured the national attention from a team perspective.<\/p>\n
Trout is off to a hot start early this season, hitting seven home runs \u2014 five of those during an epic series in New York against the Yankees last week.<\/p>\n
But against Jays starter Patrick Corbin, Trout entered the night 2-for-14 with seven strikeouts in career matchups with the left-hander. It was a trend that continued on this night. Trout went 0-for-3 with a fly out, a groundout to first and, finally, a groundout to Corbin himself in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n
One appearance in A-ball, a not-so impressive start in his Toronto debut \u2014 even though the Jays did earn the win over the visiting Twins \u2014 and yet Corbin appears to have found his footing.<\/p>\n
He went five innings in his second Jays start, relieved by Spencer Miles after giving up the game\u2019s first run in the fifth on back-to-back singles \u2014 the only two hits against him \u2014 and a sac fly.<\/p>\n
Corbin struck out three and walked to while lowering his ERA to 3.68.<\/p>\n
Once viewed as a desperate fill-in to address a depleted starting rotation, Corbin is earning the $1 million the Jays doled out. Regardless of what happens moving forward with the 36-year-old veteran, the money was well spent.<\/p>\n
Up Next<\/p>\n
A series sweep is in play for the Jays but it won\u2019t be easy. First pitch in Wednesday\u2019s finale, scheduled for 3:07 p.m., will be thrown by Angels RHP Jose Soriano (5-0), who has given up only one earned run in 32.2 innings for a microscopic ERA of 0.28 \u2026 LHP Eric Lauer is scheduled to take the ball for the visitors. Lauer earned a win in his season debut, but he\u2019ll enter his scheduled outing with a 1-3 record and a 7.13 ERA \u2026\u00a0 Wednesday marks the finale of a nine-game trip for the Jays, who dropped four of their first six before arriving in SoCal \u2026 Wednesday is also the day George Springer (big toe) is technically eligible to be activated from the IL, but no one expects the veteran back, at least not now as he continues to improve.<\/p>\n
fzicarelli@postmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday in Anaheim, the Blue Jays were attempting to string together their first three-game win streak since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,114069,426,111075,120495,121340,15935,24871,14506,57484,2866,120482,5128,17902,57087,54971,422,17204,17225,57,15937,28054,24642,17209,14504],"class_list":{"0":"post-282405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-angel-stadium-of-anaheim","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-double-play","14":"tag-eloy-jimenez","15":"tag-eric-lauer","16":"tag-george-springer","17":"tag-jeff-hoffman","18":"tag-jo-adell","19":"tag-jorge-soler","20":"tag-los-angeles-angels","21":"tag-louis-varland","22":"tag-mike-trout","23":"tag-ninth-inning","24":"tag-nolan-schanuel","25":"tag-patrick-corbin","26":"tag-shohei-ohtani","27":"tag-the-blue-jays","28":"tag-the-jays","29":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","30":"tag-vladimir-guerrero-jr","31":"tag-win-streak","32":"tag-yankees","33":"tag-yoan-moncada","34":"tag-zach-neto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}