TORONTO – Josh Johnson didn’t need to think too hard about how to describe his performance Monday.
“I was pitiful,” said the Toronto Blue Jays right-hander. “It’s the only way I could put it.”
It was difficult to disagree. The Blue Jays’ losing skid hit five games after they made five errors in their 14-5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were led by catcher A.J. Ellis’s career-best five RBIs.
Johnson (1-6) allowed seven hits and five runs in two-plus innings to drop his fourth consecutive decision.
“I didn’t even battle them,” Johnson said. “Everything was in the middle of the plate. So there’s nothing else I can do but take it. Yeah, that was a pretty poor performance.”
Ellis had four hits including a two-run homer as the Dodgers extended their winning streak to four games.
“He’s been pretty good all year, really,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “For me, he’s just consistent. He gives you good at-bats all the time. It’s not always hits but you’re always going to get a quality at-bat from A.J. He’s a guy who knows what he’s doing up there.”
Skip Schumaker also drove in three runs with a home run for the Dodgers (51-47) while the Blue Jays (45-53) were outhit only 16-13.
South Korean left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu (8-3) allowed four runs in 5 1/3 innings to pick up his second win in his past three starts. Cheered on by a large contingent of fans in the stands along the right-field line, he gave up nine hits and two walks while striking out three.
“That was definitely more than I expected here in Toronto,” Ryu said of his cheering section. “I was very appreciative of that, it was a big help for me.”
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Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was less appreciative and more selective in his words.
“I probably can’t say it right there,” he said. “It wasn’t a very good game. We got whipped all the way around. Josh, they took it to him. Even our bullpen tonight everybody gave a little up. We were sloppy defensively, it was just a crappy game, it really was.”
Andre Ethier doubled with one out in the second and A.J. Ellis hit his fifth homer of the season to give the Dodgers a 2-0 lead. Johnson hit Juan Uribe with a pitch with two out and Mark Ellis singled. Carl Crawford singled in a run and Ellis took third on a throwing error by centre-fielder Colby Rasmus. Yasiel Puig singled in the fourth run.
The Dodgers chased Johnson in the third. Ethier led off with a double and scored on a single by A.J. Ellis to make the score 5-0. A wild pitch and a catcher’s interference put runners at first and second with none out before left-hander Aaron Loup replaced Johnson.
Johnson was at a loss to explain what has gone wrong for him this season as his earned-run average sits at 5.66.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The ball is in the middle of the plate and it’s pretty easy to see why they hit it all over the place. One day it’ll be really good and then the next day it will be back to square one. It’s been really inconsistent. I don’t know.
“Sometimes I feel like I make a pretty good pitch — not today — but in past games I make a pretty good pitch and all of a sudden you get base hits, bloopers fall and balls get through. But today I didn’t make a good pitch.”
Gibbons said there’s no plans to change the rotation, and that Johnson isn’t going anywhere.
“What I’ve seen of Josh he’s just scattering too much,” Gibbons said. “He’s inconsistent in the zone making his pitches. He has a tendency to yank it to his glove side where he gets in trouble. You feel for the guy because he’s competing but it just hasn’t happened. It’s not for a lack of effort but basically it comes down to locating the ball and he’s had trouble doing that.”
The Blue Jays tried to get back into the game. They scored twice in the third started by Edwin Encarnacion’s two-out infield single. Adam Lind walked and Melky Cabrera singled in a run. Mark DeRosa had an RBI single to right when Schumaker could not hold his sinking drive to cut the lead to 5-2.
The Dodgers scored once in the fourth. Adrian Gonzalez led off with a walk, took third on a single by Hanley Ramirez and came home when Ethier grounded into a double play.
The Dodgers added four in the sixth against Dustin McGowan and Brett Cecil. After a walk and the second error of the game by Lind, A.J. Ellis picked up his fourth RBI of the game with a single. Uribe’s groundout to shortstop scored another run. Mark Ellis hit a sacrifice fly and Crawford had an RBI single to make the score 10-2.
The Blue Jays scored twice in the sixth. After two singles, a fielder’s choice grounder by Brett Lawrie of Langley, B.C., scored one. A wild pitch by reliever Jose Dominguez scored the other.
The Dodgers scored four against reliever Steve Delabar in the seventh, three on Schumaker’s first homer of the season that followed a single by A.J. Ellis that gave him his fifth RBI.
“RBIs are a product of guys getting on base in front of me and I had three guys who I felt like were on base every time I came up with Adrian, Hanley and Andre,” Ellis said.
The Blue Jays scored once in the eighth on DeRosa’s double and Rasmus’ single.
NOTES: Attendance at Rogers Centre was 34,515. … Blue Jays left-hander J.A. Happ (right knee sprain) is scheduled to pitch at triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday on his rehabilitation assignment. …In 148 games career games against the Blue Jays, Mattingly had a .324 batting average, third behind the .325 he hit against Oakland and Texas. ..In eight career starts against the Dodgers, Johnson has a 6.69 earned-run average. … Toronto sends out RHP Todd Redmond (1-1, 4.32 ERA) against L.A. LHP Chris Capuano (3-6, 4.63 ERA) in Tuesday’s second game of the series.
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