TORONTO — Jo Adell, one of the hottest hitters in the entire sport, delivered in a huge moment on Friday night.
Unfortunately for the Angels, they needed at least one more.
Adell’s game-tying three-run homer in the seventh inning was the Angels’ only hit in 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position, and they lost 4-3 to the Toronto Blue Jays in 10 innings.
Sam Bachman made a throwing error after fielding a bunt in the bottom of the 10th, allowing the winning run to score and sending the Angels (43-44) back to one game under .500 for the fourth time in the past week and a half.
“The momentum, you feel the swing,” interim manager Ray Montgomery said of Adell’s homer. “We know what that feels like. We just didn’t get it done.”
After Adell’s homer, the Angels had scoring opportunities in the eighth, ninth and 10th innings. The Angels couldn’t convert any of them.
“We left some guys on base,” Montgomery said. “I know what’s going through their heads. A couple of them were questionable judgment. Guys are grinding. We’re trying to get the best we can in those situations.”
In the eighth, the Angels had Zach Neto at second with one out. Nolan Schanuel struck out. After Mike Trout was intentionally walked and Taylor Ward was unintentionally walked to load the bases, Adell struck out.
“The first pitch was probably the pitch that I wanted to swing at, and ended up taking,” Adell said. “When guys like that get in that situation, it’s never good to get behind. So we’re just kind of fighting from there. And he threw another good slider on the corner. And after that, I chased away. I didn’t do what I wanted to do. But, I got to see it and learn from it.”
In the ninth, Logan O’Hoppe led off with an infield hit and the Angels had runners at first and second with one out. Kevin Newman then hit into a double play. In the 10th, the Angels couldn’t even get their automatic runner to third. Neto lined out. After Schanuel was hit by a pitch, Trout popped out and Ward struck out.
Before all of that, when the game was scoreless, Adell led off the sixth with a double, and the Angels came up empty in three tries to knock him in.
All of those failures put a damper on a night when Adell came through with one huge hit.
The Blue Jays had just scored the first three runs of the night in the bottom of the sixth, and then the Angels mounted a rally in the top of the seventh.
Trout led off with a dribbler up the third base line. Pitcher Eric Lauer stumbled and had no play. Ward then ripped a line drive off the left-field fence.
The Blue Jays brought in righty Nick Sandlin to face Adell. He got ahead of him, 0-and-2, but then left a fastball over the plate and Adell drilled it 431 feet, off the facing of the second deck in left-center, to tie the game.
It was Adell’s 19th homer of the season and his 13th in his last 35 games.
Adell also doubled, and he lined out to center field. He hit three balls with exit velocities over 100 mph for the second game in a row.
“He just keeps showing up, like we keep talking about,” Montgomery said. “He hasn’t slowed down at all, and the bigger the moment, the better the result.”
Adell’s homer took starter Kyle Hendricks off the hook for a loss on a night that he started with five scoreless innings before getting hit in the sixth.
It was an impressive performance for Hendricks considering how hot the Blue Jays had been. They had scored 71 runs in their previous 10 games, and 36 in winning the previous four against the New York Yankees.
Things began to unravel in the sixth with a leadoff double from No. 8 hitter Will Wagner, just as right-hander José Fermin was beginning to get loose in the bullpen.
The Blue Jays bunted Wagner to third, and then Andres Gimenez knocked him in with a single into left. Hendricks gave up another single to George Springer, and then Fermin entered and allowed a hit to make it 2-0.
“I feel like I made one bad pitch to Wagner for that double, and then the other two guys, Gimenez and Springer, just put two good swings on good pitches, so just got to move on from there. But working with (O’Hoppe) has been awesome. We’ve just been on the same page. And if I keep doing these things, there will be a lot of good results to come.”
The final run that was charged to Hendricks could have been avoided. With Fermin on the mound, Neto mishandled a bouncer that could have been an inning-ending double play. Instead, he didn’t get an out and the third run scored.