Resilient Blue Jays claim series with dramatic extra-innings win over Angels

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Mulling over what he liked about the Toronto Blue Jays during their season-opening, 10-game road trip, Matt Chapman quickly pointed to one trait he sees across all areas of the club.

“I like the resiliency of this team,” he said before a wild Sunday in which his sixth-inning grand slam started a rally from a six-run deficit, Jordan Romano blew a three-run lead in the ninth and Kevin Kiermaier and George Springer drove in runs in the 10th for a 12-11 victory Sunday over the Los Angeles Angels.

“We had some things that didn't go our way early … Guys are taking good at-bats. Defensively, we've done some good things we can build off. So I feel like there are a lot of positives.”

The stunning comeback, before an Angel Stadium crowd of 31,092 under a clear, blue California sky, underlined that and left the Blue Jays at 6-4 heading into Tuesday’s home opener against the 2-7 Detroit Tigers at the renovated Rogers Centre.

For most of the afternoon, they didn’t seem likely to board their cross-continent flight happy as a first-inning sun-ball dropped in beside Daulton Varsho and led to a three-run first against Yusei Kikuchi, who later allowed homers to Shohei Ohtani and Logan O’Hoppe to create a 6-0 hole.

Angels lefty Reid Detmers, meanwhile, allowed only two hits and a walk through five before unravelling in the sixth.

"It’s so easy to fall into the 'OK, alright, it’s the last day,' all that kind of stuff,” said manager John Schneider, but instead they kept grinding. “I love the way they just went after it. Huge hit from Chappy, obviously, and then just continued to add on. It says a lot about those guys, man. They're in it until the end.”

A leadoff walk in the sixth by George Springer started the turnaround. Bo Bichette followed with a single, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was hit on the left foot to load the bases and Chapman hammered a cookie fastball on the next pitch to give everyone an easy trip home.

Varsho followed with a brilliant bunt single before reliever Andrew Wentz whiffed on a Whit Merrifield roller to the mound to put runners on first and second. Two outs later, Kevin Kiermaier plated them both with a triple.

“We have too many weapons to stop playing at any given point,” said Kiermaier. “Didn’t look like we had a whole lot of life, then George leadoff walk, Bo hit, Vladdy hit by pitch, Chapman grand slam, we're back in the game just like that. It takes little pieces to get one big blast like that and it pumped a bunch of life into us and we knew we were close at that point.”

After a crucial shutdown inning from Adam Cimber, the Blue Jays went to work against a couple of old friends. Ryan Tepera hit Bichette, gave up a bloop single to Guerrero, and watched Chapman break the tie on a bull dunked into centre before Whit Merrifield rolled a ball through the 5-6 hole for some insurance.

That’s when Aaron Loup took over. He struck out Cavan Biggio before an intentional walk to pinch-hitter Alejandro Kirk, only for Kiermaier to deliver a two-run single that opened up a 10-6 edge. Notably, Kiermaier stopped Biggio as he was walking back to the dugout for a quick chat, presumably for a little intel.

“They looked like they were in from my vantage point and Cavan said they were more away,” explained Kiermaier. “So I set my sights on that, looked for something out over the plate and I got it. A little flare did the trick.”

Yimi Garcia worked through the heart of the Angels lineup in the seventh and Erik Swanson gave up a Drury homer in the eighth before Romano couldn’t nail things down in the ninth, hitting Anthony Rendon with the bases loaded before a two-run Hunter Renfroe double.

Still, he recovered to strike out Drury to keep the game tied and in the 10^th, the Blue Jays pounced quickly when Kiermaier ripped a ground-rule double and Springer brought him home with an RBI single.

Even then, things weren’t easy as Trevor Richards loaded the bases with two out and induced a first-pitch foul pop-up from Mike Trout that Kirk misjudged and let fall. Richards issued a run-scoring walk to the Angels superstar to make it a one-run game before Tim Mayza got Ohtani on a weak grounder to second, ending the chaos.

“It’s a testament to the culture we have here and the mentality that we have, which is we're going to battle and we're going to give it our all until the last out,” said Mayza.

Pivotal to the Blue Jays’ resiliency thus far has been the play of Chapman, a force of nature through the first 10 games. He reached base in four of his six plate appearances, with one of his outs coming on a 98.8 m.p.h. rocket to the mound.

Over the winter, he dropped his leg kick in favour of a toe-tap and has looked dangerous every time up, with an utterly absurd average exit velocity of 100.3 m.p.h. and hard-hit rate of 77.8 per cent underlying his .475/.523/.800 batting line with seven doubles, two homers and 14 RBIs thus far.

“I have big goals this season,” said Chapman. “I really felt like I had a higher ceiling than what I'd been showing. I've shown it in spurts throughout the courses of different years and I've had good seasons before. But I've used all that I've learned and I felt like I tried to just put the best version of myself out there. Getting early success helps, it lets you know that you're doing the right thing. Obviously, I'm not going to hit .400 the rest of the season – who knows, maybe I'll break a record – but the biggest thing I can take is what I worked on this off-season translates.”

The same applies to the Blue Jays as a whole over the first week and a half, which had some mixed-bag elements with rough outings from starters, bullpen blips and the occasional misplays, but also key moments of high leverage.

As well, their emphasis on baserunning, defence, attention to detail and, in Kiermaier’s words, “letting the game come to us,” has also shone through.

“It's good that we're facing adversity like this early because things aren't always going to go our way,” said Chapman. “You could always let (deflating plays) be, oh, that's why we lost and that's why this happened. Instead, I feel like we just stayed in the moment, we still tried to get every little thing we could out of the game.

"And you never know. Even though you give up the save, you get us out of the inning and we still have an opportunity to score runs and win the game. Every little thing like that adds up. And I feel like that's how you find a way to win these games.”

They found a way to win a crazy one Sunday, much as they did on opening day in St. Louis and Friday in Anaheim, too. Ten games is far too small a sample to draw any conclusions from, but what they’ve already shown certainly hints at an adventurous ride to come.