Yikes.
The Blue Jays rode into this series on a wave of optimism, momentum, and hot bats. It looks like they will leave it ice cold at the plate with a used-up bullpen and bad taste in the mouth.
Today's meltdown began with a rough start from Drew Hutchison.
The 23-year-old lasted only 4.1 innings with three runs allowed on three hits. Even though he had his swing-and-miss stuff going with five strikeouts, the four walks he issued killed Hutchison, ratcheting up his pitch count and putting men on base at inopportune times.
Things came apart for Hutchison in the top of the fourth when he surrendered a two-out walk to Howie Kendrick after a 10 pitch at-bat. A stolen base, a throwing error by Dioner Navarro, and two consecutive doubles later, the Angels were up 2-1. By the end of the inning Hutchison had thrown 85 pitches.
In the fifth, he committed the cardinal sin of walking the ninth batter, only to see him come around on a Mike Trout double off Marcus Stroman after Hutch had exited the game, bringing the score at that time to 3-1.
The dagger came in the 6th inning when Hank Conger put one over the right field wall with two men on base against Stroman to put the Angels up 6-1.
Los Angeles would tack on another run off Stroman to bring the score to 7-1 and cement an abysmal day for the rookie.
Stroman stuggled mightily in his 1.2 innings of work allowing hard hit ball after hard hit ball on the way to surrendering four runs on six hits. The young right-hander appeared to be having serious difficulty keeping the ball down.
The Angels would get two more add-on runs off Brett Cecil, and when it was all said and done the bullpen allowed six runs on nine hits with four walks in 4.2 innings.
Offensively, the less said the better.
By my scientific estimation i'd say the Blue Jays popped the ball up about 27 times, but it's possible they snuck a few extra outs in somehow. At the end of the day they produced just three runs on six hits.
Although the team had rallies in the 7th and 8th the game was over by then, so the only truly exciting moment on offence came in the first.
The Jays drew blood first by scoring a run created pretty much exclusively by the legs of Jose Reyes. Reyes led off the inning with a single, promptly stole a base and then scored from second on a Jose Bautista ground ball. Reyes had taken off for third on the play and then threw caution to wind sprinting for the plate and sliding in safely.
Other than that, as I said, yikes.
To add insult to injury the Jays were also dreadful defensively on the day.They had two errors and also a dropped catch from Colby Rasmus that likely should have been an error as well.
Also in the "bad news" column Jose Bautista was unable to get on base for the first time this season ending his impressive streak of consecutive games on base at 37 games.
Jays of the Day: No one has a big WPA number, but I'll give this one to Adam Lind given that he had a 2-for-3 game with a double and a walk and also Jose Reyes given his first inning heroics.
Suckage Jays: Literally every other player.
Note: I'm aware that Tom normally gives credit here to those who contributed most to the gamethread, but I don't know how to do that, except to count manually, which I really don't see myself doing. Anyone who stuck around the gamethread today is a downright hero in my book, so you are all winners.