ANAHEIM, Calif. — What’s super fun about baseball is the way it can take the most data-driven, logic-based, game-and-scenario-planning and just rip it to shreds, leaving improvisation amid chaos in its wake.
The Toronto Blue Jays’ wild weekend in Anaheim, capped by Sunday’s off-the-rails 11-10 victory over the Los Angeles Angels, offered a prime example of that. While Thursday’s 6-3 win was relatively straight-forward, the three games that followed were leverage-filled affairs in which both teams dug deep into their bullpens and benches, used players out of role and grinded the hell out of one another.
One-run wins Friday and Saturday turned out to be amuse-bouches for a truly crackers finale, in which: Jose Berrios lasted only 2.1 innings as Shohei Ohtani took him deep twice; the Blue Jays worked three bases-loaded walks; the teams blew seven leads; 11 relievers appeared in the game and only five didn’t give up a run. And that’s just for starters.
“That was crazy,” said shortstop Bo Bichette, whose solo shot in the eighth inning tied the game 10-10. “Back and forth all day. A lot of offence. Definitely a good one to get.”
Consider this list of events:
Luis Rengifio tripled and scored when Jays second baseman Santiago Espinal took a relay from the outfield and threw it into the stands in the second. Raimel Tapia knocked in a pair on a seeing-eye grounder that slipped through starter Patrick Sandoval and then hit second base and bounced up and over the two middle infielders in the third.
Matt Chapman hit a roller up the first-base line that spun fair and he eluded a tag Matrix-style as he slid into first to load the bases for a pivotal three-run rally in the seventh.
Adam Cimber gave up only his second homer in 23 appearances but was one of four Blue Jays relievers to appear three times in the series, along with Jordan Romano, Yimi Garcia and David Phelps, the latter two locking down the eighth and ninth innings.
Ross Stripling got the final out for a save Saturday and then threw another 1.2 innings of long relief Sunday. The Blue Jays went 7-for-17 with runners in scoring position — a week’s worth of hits earlier this month.
After four hours 13 minutes of madness before a crowd of 36,568 on a picturesque SoCal day, the Blue Jays improved to 27-20 with their fifth straight win and ninth in 12 outings, capping a 5-1 road trip. A day off Monday comes at a good time before six at home against the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins begins Tuesday.
“Oof, that was a dogfight right there,” said Chapman, who also worked a walk and scored twice Sunday after delivering the go-ahead runs Saturday. “Quick turnaround. It’s hot. We put up a lot of runs. They put up a lot of runs. Tons of back and forth. It’s a lot of fun. That’s a really good team over there and it’s not easy to win a series, let alone finish off a tough sweep like that. We could very easily have rolled over when we give up the lead a couple of times and for us to come back and continue to fight and scratch and claw to win that game is huge.”
Chapman was one of several players Charlie Montoyo singled out for praise, noting how during each one of his mound visits to make a pitching change, the star third baseman helped keep everyone engaged by saying things like, “all right, it’s going to be a battle today … OK, it’s going to be a tougher battle,” the manager relayed.
“That’s kind of who I am, for sure,” said Chapman. “When you’re in a game like today, it’s easy to be tired, it’s easy to not stay in the game. I’m just trying to do whatever I can to keep the guys in the game and keep positive energy. And I was trying to feed these guys with energy all day to continue to push to find ways to win baseball games.”
Important developments for the Blue Jays during the road trip include the emergence of Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who collected two of the bases-loaded walks and plated the winning run with a double in the eighth and finished with five RBIs, and Alejandro Kirk, who reached four times Sunday and continues to mash everything in sight.
Along with Chapman finally getting some breaks, plus key knocks during the week from Tapia and Danny Jansen, the production at the bottom of the lineup led to some of the balance that had been expected.
“It just makes us more of who we are,” said Bichette.
On the flip side, Berrios’ outing was troubling and extended some of the ups and downs he’s experienced so far this season. Coming off good starts against Seattle and St. Louis, he went less than three innings for the second time this season, the first that’s happened since 2017. He allowed six runs on six hits and a walk in this one and had no answer for Ohtani.
“That’s one of those days you don’t have all the power, but I was trying to keep going out there and competing. But they beat me today,” said Berrios. “That’s part of the game. I’m going to turn the page and get ready for the next one.”
Berrios’ short outing really scrambled the pitching plans for the Blue Jays, as with Romano, Richards and Phelps in a pitch-only-if-really-needed mode, their plan had been to save Stripling for some late-game leverage. Instead, he had to follow a shaky Ryan Borucki, who gave up two runs in one inning of work, and meant 1.1 clean innings from Andrew Vasquez were essential.
Garcia got the eighth, working around an Ohtani walk to stymie the top of the Angels lineup before Phelps locked things down in the ninth.
“Those innings make me better,” Garcia said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “Every time I see that situation and I’m full of emotion, I’m happy to be in that (high leverage) situation. That’s what I want and that’s what I’m here for.”
On a weekend when even big outbursts from a rejuvenated offence weren’t enough to avoid more one-run games, those efforts were needed for games that didn’t go anything like the way they were drawn up.
