Blue Jays bobble away strong Kevin Gausman start in loss to St. Louis Cardinals

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ST. LOUIS — Win the first one, throw away the next.

Poor defence and a dearth of timely hitting conspired against the Blue Jays here at Busch Stadium on Saturday afternoon, frittering away a stellar effort from starter Kevin Gausman.

In fact, the Cardinals didn’t manage an earned run off of the Toronto starter in their 4-1 win in Game 2 of the three-game season-opening series. The sleepy Toronto bats didn’t help, managing three late-inning hits on a chilly Missouri afternoon.

Instead, Gausman was victimized by some sloppy defence, most notably an uncharacteristic error from third baseman Matt Chapman in the third inning. With two out, Chapman bobbled the ball then threw it away in what would have been an inning-ending out.

The Cards Brendan Donavan scored on the miscue and then the home side added two more when a Nolan Gorman ground ball found the perfect route to get between the third-base line and Chapman.

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Meanwhile, a Jays offence that has belted out a club opening day record 19 hits and scored runs two days earlier, didn’t manage its first hit until a Kevin Kiermaier single in the seventh.

Further adding to the frustration, the strike zone was foreign territory to Cards starter Jack Flaherty, who walked the bases loaded in the first, three of the seven free passes he allowed in the first four innings. The bats, however, were unable to take advantage of the waywardness.

The Jays managed to make things interesting in the eighth when Vlad Guerrero Jr. scooted home from third on a wild pitch from Cardinals reliever Jordan Hicks. When Brandon Belt drew the Jays 10th walk of the game later in the inning, the Jays had runners on first and second with one out. But Cards reliever Ryan Helsley induced meek ground outs from Danny Jansen and Cavan Biggio to blow away any whiff of a rally.

The Cards added an insurance run in the bottom half of the inning when Cavan Biggio had trouble cleanly fielding a sharply hit ball from Jordan Walker and that was that.

Gausman allowed eight hits and struck out seven in his season debut and will head into his next start with a pristine 0.00 ERA and nothing else to show for it other than the loss.