After suffering a hard loss to the Mariners at home, the Jays took to the road with the first stop being Houston to begin their roadtrip against the Astros. Kevin Gausman went to the mound in the opening game of the series to face off against Houston’s Hunter Brown for the pitching matchup of the evening.

The game for most of the night was methodical, with both pitchers dishing out their best stuff on the bump, and the defence backing up both teams. Alan Roden made a terrific throw all the way from left field back to first in the bottom of the first inning, when Jose Altuve tried to pull a hit-and-run trick, but was gunned down after Yordan Alvarez’s fly ball as caught and promptly zipped over to first before Altuve could return to end the inning.

Both teams were also very active on the bases in the early goings of the contest, with Jeremy Pena, and George Springer taking off early to advance themselves into scoring positions on multiple occasions.

Gausman looked absolutely lights out through the first four innings, striking out five batters, and ending both the third and fourth inning with punchouts, but the bats couldn’t get around Hunter Brown, as they really struggled to get runners on via base hits and solely relied on walks to get on base.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Astros broke out. Zach Dezenzo started it off with an RBI double into right field to put Houston on the board 1-0. Then the very next batter Jose Altuve knocked his own double into left field off the Crawford Boxes to score a pair to increase their lead to 3-0. Two batters later, Issac Paredes lined a single into right field that would score Altuve from second. All of a sudden, Houston had put up a four run inning, and had all the confidence in the world after being held to no offence through the first four by Gausman.

Houston continued to blank Toronto on the scoreboard, and through seven innings, the Jays looked lost at the plate, meanwhile Yordan Alvarez would hit am RBI single into right field to add another tally to the Astros’ lead to make it 5-0.

The Astros would cap off the game in the bottom of the eighth, when Brendon Rogers would line a two-RBI double into right, adding insult to injury while Houston would run the game up to a 7-0 lead. The ballgame would end with Toronto being shutout and only managing to get two hits in the entire contest, an absolute beatdown by Houston and what seems to be a very concerning loss for the Blue Jays.

Toronto has struggled to put up runs in their last few games, and the pitching while good in the beginning, has slowed down their early dominace and have given up over six runs on five of their last eight games. This is also the second year in a row they’ve been shutout in their first series of the year  against Houston, with last year’s shutout loss resulting in a no-hitter, and they nearly repeated the same fate in this game.

There are clearly issues with the team as of late, both at the plate, and now with the starting rotation, but Toronto will look to bounce back from these last three losses with a win on Tuesday in game two of the series.

Winner: Houston Astros (11-11)

Loser: Toronto Blue Jays (12-11)

PLAYERS OF THE GAME:

Z. Dezenzo: 2/3, 2R, RBI

J. Altuve: 1/3, 2RBI, 1R

Y. Alvarez: 1/3, RBI

PITCHERS:

Win – H. Brown: 7.0IP, 2H, 0ER, 9K (3-1)

Loss – K. Gausman: 6.0IP, 6H, 4ER, 6K (2-2)