Blue Jays take-aways: A walk, a bobble and a blast — game over against the Angels

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This article was published 09/04/2021 (1676 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Friday’s Blue Jays-Angels game:

The Blue Jays found themselves in a big hole early in what wound up being their first blowout loss of the young season, falling 7-1 to the Los Angeles Angels, but the deficit was self-inflicted.

In the top of the second, T.J. Zeuch gave up a couple of soft hits, each one a little nubber off the right side of the mound toward third, neither of which was hit hard enough for either the pitcher or third baseman Cavan Biggio to make a play.

With two on and two out, Zeuch committed a cardinal sin — he walked the nine hitter. That loaded the bases and turned the lineup over, but the big righty should still have escaped, as he got leadoff man David Fletcher to hit what should have been an inning-ending ground ball to short. But Bo Bichette had trouble getting the ball out of his glove and his rushed throw to second base was late, extending the inning for Shohei Ohtani.

Given the free at-bat, Ohtani took advantage, blasting a three-run double high off the right-field wall, missing a grand slam by about a foot and a half. The Jays were down 4-0 instead of going to the dugout in a 0-0 game, and never recovered.

• Jays left out: For the first time this season, the Jays faced a left-handed starter, and it was reasonable to think that seeing a southpaw might be exactly what a team full of right-handed hitters would need to shake out of a season-opening slump. After all, they’d only had 17 plate appearances as a team against lefties, and you’d think there’s nothing like a portsider to give those sluggers a better look, even with a depleted lineup that was missing Teoscar Hernandez and, after an inning, Lourdes Gurriel, Jr.

Sounds good in theory. In practice, it didn’t work out well at all.

Andrew Heaney dominated the Jays over his six innings of work, allowing a first-inning single to Bo Bichette and then nothing until the sixth, when Marcus Semien and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. each hit hard line singles. They were stranded when Joe Panik flied out to end the inning. The lefty struck out nine against only a couple of walks.

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• Meet the new guys: Two young Jays made their major-league debuts Friday night, with Josh Palacios starting the game in right field, becoming the 19,935th player in big-league history, and Ty Tice coming into the game in relief in the eighth, becoming the 19,936th.

Palacios, who had a terrific spring, was called up to replace Hernandez, who had to be placed on the injured list after having come in close contact with someone who has since tested positive for COVID-19. Hernandez must quarantine for at least seven days and produce a negative test no earlier than day five to be allowed to come back.

Palacios had a rough night at the plate, going 0-for-3 with a couple of strikeouts and being hit by a pitch. As well, the first two balls hit near him in the outfield were absolute missiles. He leapt at the wall in right to try to get a piece of Ohtani’s second-inning double, and did it again in left field in the fifth when Mike Trout slammed a double off the wall. He didn’t have a chance at either one.

Tice came in to face the bottom of the Angels’ order and got a couple of long fly-ball outs around a walk to Max Stassi. He got out of the inning unscathed as Guerrero saved Bichette a second error by coming off the bag to catch a wild throw and niftily tag Fletcher at the same time.

The five-foot-eight righty came back out to work the ninth and retired Ohtani and Trout, again on long fly balls, before giving up his first big-league hit — a line single to Anthony Rendon. Justin Upton then grounded out weakly to end a couple of shutout innings for the 24-year-old.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness