Janssen Feels Right at Home

Rookie pitcher, born in Orange, attended Fountain Valley High and UCLA, lives in Huntington Beach, comes home for the first time as a professional player and blanks the Angels for eight innings in a 3-0 Toronto Blue Jays victory at Angel Stadium on Wednesday night.

What could be more perfect for right-hander Casey Janssen?

A sixth-inning ground single to right field by Robb Quinlan that eluded first baseman Lyle Overbay by a couple of inches and an eighth-inning single to right by Dallas McPherson.

Without those two hits, it could have really been a perfect night for Janssen, who retired 16 batters before Quinlan’s hit, didn’t walk anyone and sailed through his two-hitter on 88 pitches.

It was hardly a feel-good story for the Angels, who saw it all only 10 days ago in Toronto, where Janssen (2-3) shut them down for 7 1/3 innings on one hit.

“I don’t know,” he said when asked to explain his mastery of his hometown team. “I guess I just match up well against them.”

Toronto Manager John Gibbons was a little more definitive.

“He’s a strike-throwing machine,” Gibbons said. “And those are quality pitches he throws. He’s sneaky and he does all the things the good ones do.”

Janssen figured he had about 80 family members and friends rooting him on.

“My stomach was going a little bit, and so was my heart,” he said.

And after Quinlan broke up his perfect night?

“I was kind of bummed,” he said. “I missed my spot and he made me pay for it. I knew I had to attack them after that. I couldn’t let them pile up the hits.”

Don’t mention piling up the hits around Kelvim Escobar (5-3), the Angels starter. He was shelled for 12 hits and all three runs in his seven innings of work.

The dozen hits Escobar gave up equaled a career high, the third time he has surrendered that many. In his last outing, Escobar gave up 11 hits in six innings against the Seattle Mariners. That’s nine runs and 23 hits against the right-hander in his last 13 innings of work.

Escobar struggled from the beginning. He gave up a single and a walk in the first inning. Then designated hitter Gregg Zaun, leading off the second, picked on an 0-and-2 breaking ball from Escobar and deposited it in the right-field seats, near the foul pole and a couple of rows back.

Escobar kept the Blue Jays from scoring again until the fifth inning even though he gave up a single after Zaun’s homer, another single in the third and three in the fourth.

It was Chone Figgins who actually kept Toronto off the scoreboard in the fourth. He scooped up Aaron Hill’s single to center field and fired the ball to the plate as Zaun came sliding in. The throw was high, but catcher Jose Molina brought it down quickly and planted his glove on Zaun’s right shin just in time.

Toronto was at it again in the fifth, and this time, the Blue Jays scored. Reed Johnson opened up with a bunt single and went to third base when Alex Rios smacked a low liner that hit the third base bag and bounced into left field for a double. With Johnson at third, Vernon Wells flied out to center on a ball hit too deep for Figgins to have any thought of repeating his throw of an inning earlier. Johnson easily came home with the Blue Jays’ second run.

Toronto added a run in the sixth on consecutive doubles by former Angels catcher Bengie Molina and Russ Adams.

B.J. Ryan pitched the ninth to collect his ninth save.

Toronto’s Troy Glaus, who suffered a contusion of the left elbow in Tuesday’s game as a result of being hit by a pitch, sat out Wednesday, but the Blue Jays had more than enough offense without him.

“It seems like I can’t get a break right now,” Escobar said. “Everything I throw, they hit. But I am going to stay aggressive. If I am going to get beat, I am going to get beat with my best.”