Blue Jays Stop Skid by Beating Angels, 10-4

The Angels swept the Toronto Blue Jays last weekend at Anaheim, but that won’t happen again.

The Blue Jays made sure of that by winning the first game of this three-game set, 10-4, Friday night.

The Blue Jays scored all of their runs on two-out hits in stopping a season-high six-game losing streak.

The victory moved Toronto back into sole possession of first place in the American League East, one game ahead of the New York Yankees, who lost, 6-5, to Kansas City.

“Over the last couple of games we haven’t been capitalizing on our chances by coming up with the key two-out hit,” said Paul Molitor, who had three hits, scored three times and drove in one.

“It started with Robbie (Alomar) in the third, Joe (Carter) kept it going, I had a big knock and (Ed) Sprague finished it off,” he said.

Carter homered, doubled and drove in three runs. Sprague also drove in three runs.

The Blue Jays scored six times in the third inning against Phil Leftwich (2-5). Alomar singled home the first run and Carter followed with an RBI double. Molitor and Tony Fernandez hit RBI singles and Sprague singled home two runs for a 6-0 lead.

Also in the third, John Olerud drew his 100th walk of the season to become became only the second Blue Jay player in team history to walk 100 or more times in a season. Fred McGriff holds the club record with 119.

Toronto starter Todd Stottlemyre (9-10) was never in trouble after the third. He gave up two runs on seven hits in eight innings.

The Angels scored twice off Duane Ward in the ninth, when Jim Edmunds got his first major league hit, a double.

Leftwich gave up six runs on seven hits in three innings.

Former Angel Dick Schofield, written off after breaking his arm on May 12, came in to play shortstop in the seventh inning for the Blue Jays, his first appearance since the injury.