Blue Jays Pick Apart Ortiz at the Seams

The learning curve never seems to end for Angel pitcher Ramon Ortiz. Nor did the flow of fastballs Ortiz delivered in fastball situations against the Toronto Blue Jays Monday night.

Three of those pitches were blasted for solo home runs, and the Angels and their young right-hander suffered a 4-2 loss to the Blue Jays before 17,483 in Edison Field, missing a chance to gain ground on first-place Seattle in the American League West.

Ortiz, the 24-year-old from the Dominican Republic, pitched a solid game, allowing four runs on five hits in eight innings. With the way the Angels have been hitting lately, it was the kind of effort that is usually good enough to win.

Ortiz (4-5) struck out three and walked none, a marked improvement over recent starts in which he struggled with his control. Of his 123 pitches, 84 were strikes.

But Ortiz’s mistakes, though few, were costly.

Toronto first baseman Carlos Delgado, who is making a run to become baseball’s first Triple Crown winner since Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, smacked a 1-1 fastball over the wall in left-center for his league-leading 39th home run of the season and a 1-0 Blue Jay lead.

Jose Cruz Jr. jumped all over Ortiz’s first-pitch fastball to lead off the third, sending it deep into the right-center field seats for his 28th home run of the season and a 2-0 lead.

Darrin Fletcher’s one-out double and Mickey Morandini’s two-out double in the fifth gave Toronto a 3-1 lead, and Dave Martinez drove a full-count fastball into the bleachers in right-center for a homer and a 4-1 lead.

“Ramon was outstanding, he did great, and he has nothing to be ashamed of,” Angel catcher Bengie Molina said. “They hit the home runs on three straight fastballs. In part, it was my fault for not mixing it up better. I should have talked to Ramon beforehand.”

When Molina called for those fastballs, he said he was hoping Ortiz would throw two-seamers, which act more like hard sinkers, instead of four-seamers, which are more straight and stay flat.

Ortiz has the choice of what type of fastball he throws after Molina calls the pitch, and on all of the home-run balls, he went with four-seamers.

“I made the decisions to throw the four-seamers,” Ortiz said. “I was trying to throw them outside, but they wound up high and over the middle. I’m learning something every time out. The team played hard. I just had no luck today.”

Manager Mike Scioscia was more impressed with Ortiz’s overall performance than he was upset at the three mistakes.

“He was aggressive in the strike zone, and he did a great job changing speeds, but he was unfortunate to get a few pitches into some bad locations,” Scioscia said.

“I’m not going to second-guess anything he did because he had a good feel for what he was doing out there. If he pitches like that, we’re going to win most of his games. This was definitely a step forward for him.”

The Angel offense, however, took a huge step back against Toronto right-hander Esteban Loaiza, who limited the Angels to two runs--one earned--on seven hits in seven innings, striking out five and walking two to improve to 8-9.

Loaiza departed with a 4-2 lead after seven innings, and the Angels mounted a serious threat against Blue Jay reliever Pedro Borbon, who walked pinch-hitter Ron Gant and Mo Vaughn with one out in the eighth.

But right-hander John Frascatore, who exchanged heated words with Blue Jay pitching Coach Dave Stewart Saturday--the two have since made up--struck out Tim Salmon and got Garret Anderson to ground into an inning-ending force play.

Closer Billy Koch, who regularly hits 98 mph on the speed gun, then retired the Angels in order.

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AL WEST RACE

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Team W L GB Seattle 71 60 -- Oakland 69 61 1 1/2 Angels 67 64 4

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WILD-CARD RACE

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Team W L GB Cleveland 68 59 -- Boston 68 60 1/2 Oakland 69 61 1/2 Toronto 69 62 1 ANGELS 67 64 3

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ELSEWHERE

Shigetoshi Hasegawa and Troy Percival will share closing duties. Page 5