Homestand sweep gives sizzling Blue Jays their season-high eighth win a row

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Another sold-out crowd at Rogers Centre, another close game against the Los Angeles Angels and yet another win.

A seven-game homestand sweep was capped off by Sunday’s 3-2 victory as the Blue Jays extended their season-high win streak to eight games to improve their record to 52-38.

Each of the Jays’ first two wins over the Angels came in extra innings by identical 4-3 outcomes.

The margins are as thin as their pitching, but the Jays find different ways to prevail.

The following are three takeaways as Bo Bichette homered and Davis Schneider’s tie-breaking RBI single in the sixth allowed the Jays to maintain their three-game bulge on the Yankees and Rays, who both also won on Sunday:

1. A game Gausman

Following a poor outing against Arizona on June 19, a self-critical Kevin Gausman followed with eight shutout frames in Cleveland and a solid five-inning outing on Canada Day against the Yankees.

He continued that trend against the Halos with 5.2 innings, in which he was in and out of trouble all afternoon, giving up seven hits and three walks, but limiting the damage with nine strikeouts

He began by giving up a home run to Mike Trout in the first inning.

Gausman recorded five strikeouts through the first two innings and would be aided by an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded in the fourth.

Gausman battled from his first pitch to his last. Following his ninth strikeout of the game — and a season-high 107th pitch — the decision to relieve him was made with two outs in the sixth inning.

2. The what-if game

Baseball’s July 31 trade deadline is on the immediate horizon and the Blue Jays almost certainly will be buyers. While GM Ross Atkins has said he wants to add a right-handed bat, every contending team could use some more pitching and the Jays could have been looking at a potential addition to their rotation on Sunday in Angels starter Tyler Anderson, who is in the final year of a three-year, $39-million US contract.

An expiring contract on a non-contending team normally translates into a change of scenery and if the 43-46 Angels find themselves out of the playoff race, there’s every reason to believe they would consider trading the left-hander, who allowed three runs in five innings on Sunday.

Anderson, 35, is 2-6 this season with a 4.19 ERA and 79 strikeouts in 96.2 innings.

The lone lefty starter in Toronto’s rotation is Eric Lauer, who has been good, but was thrust into the role almost by necessity.

3. Return of Loperfido

Amid the flurry of Sunday’s roster moves was the return of Joey Loperfido from the minors.

Of all the prospects the Jays acquired at last year’s trade deadline when all six of Toronto’s pending free agents were shipped, Loperfido was the first to get a shot.

The talent was obvious, but refinement was required to cut down his high strikeout rate.

Back with the big-league team, Loperfido, you guessed it, struck out swinging in his first at-bat to end the second inning.

In his second at-bat, he came through by knocking in Myles Straw on a two-out RBI single into right field to give the Jays a 2-1 lead. Loperfido was tagged out trying to stretch it into a double.

Up next

The Jays will be in the Windy City to play the Chisox for a three-game series beginning Monday (7:40 p.m. first pitch). When the Pale Hose were in town last month, they took two of three to hand the Jays a rare series loss. Since then, the Jays have won four successive series … Monday’s game is the first of a seven-game homestand for the South Siders, by far the worst team in the AL and baseball’s second-worst overall ahead only of the truly putrid Colorado Rockies, who played host to the White Sox this past weekend.