Angels defeat Blue Jays 7-3 despite late comeback

The Toronto Blue Jays entered the third game of the series against the Los Angeles Angels this afternoon and gave José Soriano, the best pitcher in baseball right now, more trouble than anyone has all season. They battled back from three runs down, tied the game in the seventh inning, and had every reason to believe they could steal the sweep.

Then, a recurring issue surfaced again.

Tommy Nance, Braydon Fisher, and an uncharacteristic Ernie Clement dropped a fly ball combined to blow open a tied game in the bottom of the seventh, and the Blue Jays absorbed a 7–3 defeat that snapped their three-game win streak. They still take the series 2–1 and bank their first road series win of 2026, but the way this one slipped away will sting on the flight home.

As this Wednesday afternoon’s game got underway, Eric Lauer took the mound at around 3:07 PM EST. He came in with two strips of kinesiology tape on the back of his neck, which were a telling early clue on his performance to come.

His velocity was down from the jump, so much so that Statcast initially tracked some of his first-inning fastballs as changeups before correcting itself. John Schneider admitted after the game that he didn’t know anything was wrong with his starter until he spotted the tape. Lacking his best stuff, Lauer was forced to survive on guile and ground balls for five innings, ultimately surrendering three runs with two home runs, in another pretty concerning performance.

Post-game, Lauer noted the kinesiology tape was precautionary per Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae. Lauer has now allowed 12 earned runs in his last 12⅓ innings, with his velocity has also been consistently below his normal range in every outing since his “flu game” in Chicago earlier this road trip. The Blue Jays’ injury depth is stretched to the point where Lauer would likely have been used as a bulk reliever behind an opener had the bullpen not already been tapped to the limit this road trip.

Eric Lauer said the tape on his neck was precautionary:

“We’re trying to fix some things posture wise.. when I’m sitting, l’ve been having a little neck issues.. it’s more like a reminder to keep my head back and make sure I’m not slouching or anything.”

On the other side, Soriano has now allowed just one run in his first six starts of the season, lowering his ERA to a jaw-dropping 0.24, the lowest mark in a pitcher’s first six starts since earned runs became official in both leagues in 1913, minimum 30 innings pitched. Despite the best start of any starting pitcher in the modern era, the Blue Jays managed seven hits off Soriano, the most anyone has tagged him for all year, but couldn’t string them together into crooked numbers through five scoreless innings.

Even on a day where the Blue Jays made more contact than any previous Soriano opponent this season, they couldn’t string together hits when it mattered early in the game.

The game felt over entering the seventh, with the Blue Jays trailing 3–0, but the Blue Jays didn’t hear no bell. Kazuma Okamoto started things by working a walk, which was promptly followed by an Andrés Giménez double. After a pitching change, Tyler Heineman broke through with a run-scoring groundout.

Then, Nathan Lukes smashed a 107 mph double to bring in a run, continuing a scorching stretch that has him hitting .435 over his last seven games. To conclude the comeback, Ernie Clement ripped an RBI Single to tie the game at 3-3. Clement finished the afternoon with three hits and is now second in the American League in hits, trailing only Yordan Álvarez. The “Comeback Kids” of 2025 were back, and it was a brand new ballgame in the seventh.

Then came the bottom half.

Nance issued a one-out walk to Mike Trout to kick off his second inning of work. Earlier in the game, Trout crushed a 428 ft homer earlier in the day to tie Garret Anderson for the franchise record in extra-base hits. The Blue Jays’ pitcher then yielded a base hit to Jo Adell to put runners on the corners. Braydon Fisher, pitching for the third time in four days, came on and struck out Jorge Soler but walked pinch-hitter Yoán Moncada before Nolan Schanuel ripped a bases-clearing double that turned a tied game into a 6–3 Angels lead.

Nolan Schanuel clears the bases and the @Angels grab the lead right back!

Schanuel then came around to score for the Halos when Fisher made a pickoff error to second, advancing Schanuel to third. Then three pitches later, with Clement, ranging into right field, dropped a Vaughn Grissom flare for a base hit to make it 7–3. Joe Mantiply then had to come in afterwards and clean up the mess, but the damage was done, and as quickly as the Blue Jays battled back, they fell apart.

Aside from Soriano, Nolan Shanuel was a key difference-maker for the Halos as he ended the day 2/4 with a home run and a double, totalling 4 RBI, as Eric Lauer and the rest of the pitching staff simply couldn’t figure out the first baseman today.

The bullpen picture heading into Thursday’s off-day has some big decisions to make, as the team will re-evaluate Jeff Hoffman’s closer role after being unavailable for today’s game, and it’s a conversation that has been coming for some time, with Louis Varland the obvious candidate to close going forward after a miraculous start, now having 13 straight scoreless innings with an elite 41.3% strikeout rate.

There is a complication with this, however, as Varland has been so valuable pitching in high-leverage spots earlier in games that moving him to the ninth creates a void that’s extremely difficult to fill.

The bottom line for this afternoon’s game is that the sweep didn’t happen. But the series win did, and that’s not nothing for a 10–14 Blue Jays squad navigating one of the most injury-plagued starts to a season in recent memory. The reinforcements are coming. The off-day arrives. Onwards to Toronto, where the Guardians are up next on Friday to begin a six-game homestand.

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