TORONTO – Lourdes Gurriel Jr. walked through a virtually empty clubhouse with a baseball encased in plastic. When he got to his locker, he carefully placed it on the top shelf before giving it an admiring glance.
That ball – the same one he hit over the centre-field wall an hour earlier for his first major league homer – marked one of the lone bright spots for the Blue Jays in Saturday’s 7-4 loss to the Texas Rangers.
“It feels awesome hitting my first major league homer,” Gurriel said through a translator. “But it would have felt even better if it was in a winning cause.”
Robinson Chirinos hit two homers and Bartolo Colon earned his first victory of the season as the Rangers handed Toronto its fourth straight loss.
The 44-year-old Colon (1-0), in his first road start since taking a perfect game into the eighth inning against Houston on April 15, allowed three runs and six hits over seven innings while striking out two.
Gurriel led off the seventh with his homer on a 2-2 change-up from Colon to trim Texas’ lead to 6-3.
“Bartolo’s a legend so I feel a little more happy, a little pumped up that it was against him,” the 24-year-old Cuban said.
Jurickson Profar also went deep for the Rangers (11-17) and Shin-Soo Choo drove in a pair of runs.
Kevin Pillar had two solo shots and Yangervis Solarted tacked on an RBI for the Blue Jays (14-12), who have lost seven of their last nine after going 12-3 over their previous 15 games.
Jaime Garcia (2-2) allowed five runs and four hits over five innings. He also walked four, struck out five and threw three wild pitches in an inconsistent outing that began with four straight strikeouts.
“We lost. I didn’t get the job done,” Garcia said succinctly.
Profar put Texas up with a two-run shot in the second inning and Chirinos followed with a solo homer to increase the lead to 3-0. The Rangers nearly had three straight homers when Ryan Rua launched a ball to the right-field warning track for a long triple.
Texas plated two more in the fourth on a two-out double from Choo – and a mix-up in the outfield. Pillar and Granderson both sprinted toward the fly ball, which would have been the third out, but got their signals crossed as it dropped between them.
“We definitely expect to be better than that,” Pillar said of the mix-up, which was not ruled an error. “It is part of the game. There’s a lot of new guys out there constantly in and out and we’re going to continue to work and get better out there.
“Me and Grandy were able to come in the dugout and talk about it and hopefully it doesn’t happen again.”
Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said that play, and the runs that resulted from it, may have been a turning point in the game.
“That fly ball, who knows how it would all turn out but that’s two runs,” Gibbons said. “That changes the complexion with the score. It was a battle for (Garcia).”
Pillar’s leadoff shot to centre-field in the fifth trimmed the Rangers’ lead to 5-1 but Chirinos restored that five-run cushion in the sixth with his second homer of the day, this time off reliever Seunghwan Oh.
Teoscar Hernandez led off the bottom of the frame with a triple – Toronto’s sixth of the season – and scored on a groundout from Solarte to make it 6-2. The Blue Jays had just five triples in all of 2017.
Choo gave Texas a 7-3 lead with a single off Roberto Osuna in the ninth before Pillar hit his second homer in the bottom of the frame.
“We play to win,” Pillar said. “When we come to the at-bat we try to do our part, get some runs across the board. Individually today I had a good day at the plate but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.
“So we come back tomorrow and try to get a win.”
NOTES: Attendance was 39,176. … Toronto closes out the three-game series Sunday afternoon. Left-hander J.A. Happ (3-1, 3.72 earned-run average) will start for the Blue Jays while the Rangers counter with left Martin Perez (2-2, 9.82 ERA).
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