Jays have all the force in a wild win on Star Wars Night in Anaheim

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ANAHEIM, Calif. — Things got a little wild on Star Wars night at Angels Stadium.

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Much to the delight of the sellout crowd of 44,641 on hand to lay claim to their collectable Ohtani-Wan Kenobi bobbleheads, they also got a wildly entertaining baseball game with enough back and forth, enough home runs and enough stellar pitching performances to almost make people forget the coveted hunks of plastic they lined up for in the first place.

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Of course, the end result wasn’t exactly what the majority of this group came looking for, as the visiting Blue Jays won for the third time in a row and second time here in California on a ninth-inning Lourdes Gurriel Jr. single.

The Blue Jays didn’t help their cause with some suspect fielding, normally a strong suit of this ball club, but turned it around in time to close out a thrilling 4-3 win.

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As a team Toronto committed three errors but only one turned out to be costly when Raimel Tapia flat-out flubbed a leadoff single one-hopper into centre field off the bat of Luis Rengifo into a leadoff double.

Rengifo would score the Angels first run of the game on an Andrew Velazquez single.

That only made an already amped up Alek Manoah, celebrating the one-year anniversary of his Major League debut, that much tougher.

It’s a side manager Charlie Montoyo has come to appreciate from his sophomore starter.

“You don’t teach that,” Montoyo said. “He’s got that. He’s just game. Even though he had 90-something pitches he went back so he can do that. He gave us a chance.”

Manoah wouldn’t be around for the decision but he struck out nine over six innings and pitched around two of the three errors.

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“Those guys are always out there picking me up and making nice plays so I feel like I have a duty to pick them up and kind of step up a notch when things don’t go right,” Manoah said afterwards.

He admitted post-game the one-year anniversary of that first major league appearance was on his mind a little throughout the day leading up to last night’s start.

“A little bit yeah,” he said. “I spoke to my mom a little bit about it and kind of just reflected on the year we have had and how we’re super grateful and super blessed for everything we’ve been able to do and super excited about what is to come.”

Montoyo is super grateful for all of that as well, but last night his gratitude was aimed directly at the team effort it took to put this one in the win column.

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From Manoah’s start to the stellar work from the bullpen and everything in between, there was barely a Blue Jay that took the field that didn’t have a hand in this one.

“What I love about this win is everybody had to do something for us to win this game,” Montoyo gushed. “Danny Jansen came in (for a pinch hit in the seventh to create the run that would tie the game). (Alejandro) Kirk got the base hit (to open the ninth inning and eventually scored the game winner). Great bunt by (Bradley) Zimmer (to move Kirk into scoring position) and of course Gurriel with the big hit.”

Gurriel Jr. saw the collective effort as well and pointed to that as what has helped get the Blue Jays out of the collective hitting funk they were in less than a week ago.

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“Everyone is trying to do their part,” he said. “That’s the key. Before it was maybe one or two (guys). But now everybody is trying to do their part like I said and I think that is going to get us going like the way we have been playing lately.”

The other two Toronto errors to Gurriel Jr. and Bo Bichette did not wind up hurting the Jays.

The Angels would also give up an unearned run on their lone error of the night, but it was far more costly.

With the game tied at three after eight innings, catcher Kirk opened the ninth with a single off Angels closer Rafael Iglesias.

He was sacrificed to second on a perfect bunt by seldom used outfielder Zimmer and then would have been held at third on Gurriel’s single to right until right fielder Juan Legares failed to come up with the ball cleanly on a hop allowing Kirk to cruise home without a throw.

That turned out to be the winning run in a game the Jays really had to dig deep down to get.

It was the third win in a row for the Jays who pounded out 11 hits against the Angels but fell back into some old poor habits stranding six.

The game ended with Jordan Romano on for his American League-leading 15th save, fanning the side and ending it by getting Shohei Ohtani, on to pinch hit on his bobblehead night, swinging through a 96-mile an hour fastball.

The Jays have now won three in a row and seven of their past 10.

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