Blue Jay Bats Remain Hot

The Angels returned from Toronto earlier this week having weathered the SARS scare, but they can only hope that whatever has infiltrated the Blue Jay bats is contagious.

Toronto continued to show why it is one of the hottest-hitting teams in the American League on Saturday by pounding Angel starter Ramon Ortiz for eight of their 10 hits during a 7-4 victory before a sellout crowd of 43,661 at Edison Field.

The Angels, who also have shown some pop this season -- at home, at least, where they are hitting .301 -- picked up nine hits but could not string enough of them together against three Blue Jay pitchers.

The Blue Jay offense is one big reason Toronto has won seven of its last nine games, including four of five against the Angels (17-18), who were attempting to climb above the .500 mark for the first time since April 16.

“Toronto’s got an explosive offense,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Any mistake that was made there was hit.”

Greg Myers drilled an Ortiz fastball down the middle for a solo homer in the fourth, and Vernon Wells hit a slider that caught too much of the plate for a two-run blast during Toronto’s five-run sixth.

“I throw well today, but they see everything,” said Ortiz (4-4), also victimized by Toronto hitters in his last outing.

Indeed, Ortiz may have worked too much around the strike zone, throwing 48 of his 68 pitches for strikes while not walking a batter for the first time in eight starts this season.

“He was outstanding except for a couple of pitches,” said catcher Jose Molina, who made a rare start. “In the [sixth] inning, he missed a couple of spots.”

Ortiz gave up four hits and hit a batter during the decisive inning as Toronto, which is hitting .284 as a team, turned a 2-2 tie into a 7-2 lead. Frank Catalonotto hit a leadoff single and scored on Wells’ homer run to left that made it 4-2.

Ortiz then hit Carlos Delgado with a pitch and, one out later, surrendered consecutive singles, the second of which drove in a run. Scot Shields came on to give up Mike Bordick’s run-scoring single past second baseman Benji Gil and Chris Woodward’s sacrifice fly before averting more damage.

Toronto starter Mark Hendrickson fared much better than his counterpart, defeating the Angels for the second time in less than a week by giving up six hits and two runs over six innings.

Hendrickson gave up only four hits and two runs during Toronto’s 8-2 win over the Angels last Sunday to complete a three-game sweep.

The Angels had responded with four consecutive victories before getting thumped Saturday, when they also were plagued by sloppy defense. They committed two errors to end a stretch in which they had made only one error in 14 games.

The Angels had committed 18 errors in their first 20 games.

Shawn Wooten provided one of the few offensive highlights by driving in Troy Glaus, who had drawn a full-count walk, in the second with a double to left-center.

Toronto tied the score in the third on Woodward’s run-scoring flare into shallow center only to see the Angels regain the lead in the bottom half of the inning after Molina singled up the middle, moved to third on consecutive groundouts and scored on Tim Salmon’s single to center.

It was the first hit of the season for Molina, breaking an 0-for-11 skid.

But the lead was short-lived as Myers’ homer to right in the fourth inning tied the score at 2-2.

The Angels scored two runs in the ninth on Bengie Molina’s two-run double to the wall in left-center.

“We had a number of guys in scoring position toward the end of the game and couldn’t get anything done,” Scioscia said. “Their pitching staff did a great job and made some key pitches at key times to keep the lead.”