ANAHEIM, Calif. – The way the stupefying mistakes piled up in the early innings Tuesday night for the Toronto Blue Jays a sixth straight loss not only seemed likely, it felt imminent.
Steve Tolleson getting thrown out trying to steal third base with two on, one out and Jose Bautista at the plate in the first. Darin Mastroianni again failing to get a sacrifice bunt down with two on and none out in the second before hitting into a 6-4-3 double play. Jose Reyes rounding first base too aggressively and getting thrown out at first in the third.
After all the misery the Blue Jays have endured the previous five days, it was as if fate was stomping them repeatedly in the delicates. You know, just for giggles.
To their credit, they shook off any here-we-go-again fatalism, and kept grinding, buoyed by an ace-like outing from R.A. Dickey, and a gutsy game from the hurting Reyes. A 4-0 victory over the surging Los Angeles Angels, who had won 14 of their past 17 outings and 11 straight at home, was well-earned, and had it been played more crisply it could easily have been far more decisive.
But hey, after a season-high five straight losses, no one was complaining.
“I’d just rather dwell on the nice win today, a 4-0 shutout,” said manager John Gibbons. “That’s all that matters.”
Added Reyes, who finished with four hits and three RBIs: “We stayed focused the whole game. We know we made some mistakes on the base paths, me when I got a base hit to right field, trying to go to second with no reason there, but we fought back and got the win. That’s the most important thing.”
Reyes, who revealed to Sportsnet before the game that soreness in his right shoulder has hampered his throwing and affected some swings at the plate the past month and half, delivered a tension-breaking blow with an RBI single in the fifth that ended his team’s 0-for-25 slide with runners in scoring position.
And he then gave Dickey something every Blue Jays pitcher has been dying for lately – breathing room – with his two-run homer in the seventh that made it 3-0. It was game over from there, as the Blue Jays (48-44) picked up a half-game on the AL East leading Baltimore Orioles (49-40).
“Sometimes you try to do too much, that happens, that’s when you get in trouble,” Reyes said before the game. “At the same time, I’m tired of losing, finishing in last place, stuff like that. … We’re not getting any younger, I’m 31-years-old now, I’ve got a little bit of time in the big-leagues and I haven’t won anything. The closest I was to the World Series was in 2006, that’s a long time ago.
“I want to win at some point, everybody wants to win here, too. What better chance than this year?”
The opportunity is certainly there, and the outlook certainly changes if Dickey delivers more outings like this one. Largely sticking to his firmer knuckleballs in the 73-79 m.p.h. range while sprinkling in four or five fastballs plus one 66 m.p.h. dancer, he was in total charge throughout, allowing just four hits and a walk in seven shutout frames.
“I thought they would be a pretty patient team, not having seen (the knuckleball) this year at all, and they were, so I wanted to have a knuckleball I could depend on for strikes,” he said. “I wanted to throw first-pitch strikes, or at least one of the first two, and I was able to do that for the most part, then I could firm it up, or soften it up from there. That 74-75 mile an hour one was my strike knuckleball.”
Only twice did the Angels have more than one baserunner aboard, both times with two outs, and both times Dickey made the pitch he needed to.
A couple of stellar defensive plays helped, as well, including one by Reyes where he tracked down Colin Cowgill’s chopper to the hole at short and made a strong throw across his body for the out at first.
Then in the sixth, Mike Trout showed bad baseball isn’t strictly the Blue Jays’ domain by trying to stretch a double into a triple when Melky Cabrera bobbled the ball, but a strong throw nailed him at third to end the sixth with Albert Pujols due up.
Combined with two clean innings of relief from Dustin McGowan and Aaron Loup, plus an add-on RBI single from Dioner Navarro in the eighth – remember those? – and the Blue Jays found a way to steady themselves.
“We played a heck of a game as a team today, that’s kind of symbolic of how we hope we can play going forward,” said Dickey. “We knew it was going to be a very difficult road trip, we lost Edwin (Encarnacion to injury), we’re playing with a few less bullets than we normally have. If we can win out, all of a sudden you’ve split the road trip and that’s not all so bad.”
Accomplishing that will be no small feat, as Tuesday’s win was just their third in the last 14 meetings with the Angels, and three games in the House of Horrors that Tropicana Field has become against the suddenly hot Tampa Bay Rays looms after. Erik Kratz rejoins the team Wednesday as outfielder Cole Gillespie heads to the disabled list with an oblique strain, and contributions from all comers are needed.
“When you see our ball club everyone is hurting on the field,” said Reyes. “We’re better than a lot of ball clubs in the big-leagues if you see our lineup and this year our starting pitching has been good. They’ve been fighting for us there, and lately we haven’t been able to put up any runs. That’s weird for us because it’s something we were doing so well three weeks ago.”
In ending their losing streak, they took a small step toward getting back there.