Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reacts to striking out against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the eighth inning on Monday.Mark Blinch/Getty Images
The misery continues for the Toronto Blue Jays. The club lost for the fifth straight time on Monday, matching its longest losing streak of last year, in a 14-2 pounding by the LA Dodgers.
Dalton Rushing had two home runs and Teoscar Hernandez, Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani one each for LA, while lefty Justin Wrobleski limited the Jays to a run and two hits over five innings. Toronto’s six pitchers allowed a combined 17 hits, walked five and hit one batter. The team also committed two errors and gave up a double-steal in an ugly performance in the first meeting between the clubs since Game 7 of the 2025 World Series.
It’s hard to describe how terrible the Blue Jays were, but here is a clue. Tyler Heineman, who started at catcher, pitched the ninth inning and was the best pitcher on the staff for the night. He retired all three batter he faced.
Opinion: The Blue Jays can’t ride their playoff high into a new season
Oddly enough, Los Angeles finished the game with infielder Miguel Rojas also on the mound in the ninth. No use wasting a pitcher when you are running laps around an opponent.
It had been 156 days since the Dodgers won their second straight world championship and left Toronto fans who hoped for their first World Series crown since 1993 disappointed.
For a return matchup so early in the season there was little buzz before the contest. And once it started the Blue Jays gave the 40,991 spectators on hand little to cheer about.
There was a throwing error by reliever Josh Fleming and an error at third base when Kazuma Okamoto let a hard grounder through his legs. Boo birds let themselves be heard by the sixth inning.
Max Scherzer got the start – and loss – even though he was pulled after giving up two runs in just two innings due to forearm tendinitis that flared up after his first start last week,
Fleming, who was just called up from AAA-Buffalo, Joe Mantiply, Tommy Nance and Spencer Miles followed him and things just got progressively worse. The only reliever the Dodgers could not touch was Heineman, who featured a 53 mile-per-hour eephus pitch.
The defeat was the sixth in seven outings for the Blue Jays, who started the season with a three-game sweep of the Athletics. The clubs play again on Tuesday with Kevin Gausman (0-0) getting the start against Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (1-1). The series concludes on Wednesday afternoon when Dylan Cease (0-0) faces off against Ohtani (1-0).
Blue Jays awash in injuries in early days of the season
The loss was Toronto’s worst in an unexpectedly rocky start to the regular season. It dropped to 4-6 with the defeat.
“A loss is a loss but you have to get through it,” manager John Schneider said. “It was a tough night overall from the mound to the batter’s box. ”It’s no secret that things aren’t working for us right now. It’s better now than in July or August."
Max Scherzer pitches to the Los Angeles Dodgers during the first inning on Monday.Mark Blinch/Getty Images
After he retired Shohei Ohtani on a line out to centre to start the game, Scherzer walked Kyle Tucker. The crowd rained boos down on Tucker who the Blue Jays pursued on the free-agent market. Hernandez, a former Blue Jays star, Hernandez then hit a 371-foot in drive down the left field line to stoke LA to a 2-0 lead.
Toronto responded right away in the bottom half of the inning.
George Springer walked and after two outs were recorded, Okamoto delivered a hard single to left to advance Springer to second. Ernie Clement then lofted a short fly to right for a single to drive in Springer as Okamoto moved to second. Daulton Varsho walked to load the bases but then Myles Straw hit a grounder to short to end the frame.
Los Angeles added two more in the third. Fleming replaced Scherzer to begin the inning and Ohtani reached when he dribbled a ball back to Fleming but the pitcher then made a throwing error that allowed Ohtani to reach second. One out after that, Freddie Freeman blasted a two-run homer 438 feet to right field to put the Dodgers up 4-1. It was Freeman’s third four-bagger of the campaign.
LA added another run on a sacrifice fly in the fourth for a 5-1 advantage. It scored one in the fifth, three in the sixth, four in the seventh and once in the eighth.
The Blue Jays are now 0-5 in April. At this point there is just one team in the American League East Division with a winning record -- the New York Yankees at 7-2. Tampa Bay is 5-5, Baltimore and Toronto are 4-6 and Boston is 2-8.
Already there have been “Sell the team” chants at Fenway Park.