Angels Drop Blue Jays 8-1

Casey Janssen pitched well enough to give the Toronto Blue Jays a chance to win in his first two starts since returning from shoulder surgery, despite the regular contact made by his opponents.

On Wednesday night the hits kept on coming against him but his ability to limit the damage ran out, as the Los Angeles Angels knocked him around early and often in an 8-1 victory.

Janssen (1-2) gave up three runs in the first on Bobby Abreu’s two-run shot and a sacrifice fly by Juan Rivera, another in the third on an RBI single by Kendry Morales and one more in the fourth on Chone Figgins’ run-scoring double.

Against an effective Jered Weaver (5-2) that meant big trouble for the Blue Jays (30-25), who didn’t manage a hit until Adam Lind’s double in the fifth and mostly alternated between looking hopeless and ridiculous at the plate all night.

The loss, before a sparse crowd of 17,127 on the 20th anniversary of the Rogers Centre’s opening ceremony in 1989, dropped them to 3-2 on their current nine-game homestand.

Janssen had been 2-0 in two previous outings versus his hometown team, throwing 15 1-3 scoreless innings, but this time he wasn’t fooling the Angels (26-25), who won for the third time in eight outings.

He gave up seven hits, five for extra bases, over four innings and never found a rhythm.

Some ups and downs are to be expected as he re-establishes himself following surgery on his labrum last spring. He’s allowed 26 hits in 17 innings since his return while striking out just four batters.

When batters swing against Janssen right now, they don’t often miss.

Things were completely opposite for Weaver, who struck out five of his first seven batters and finished with a career-high 10 overall over seven innings of one-run ball.

Lind’s double to start the fifth was the first hit against him and the Blue Jays left-fielder came around two batters later on Lyle Overbay’s double to the right-field corner.

The Angels choked off any hope for a late Toronto comeback with a three-spot in the eighth, helped along by a Scott Rolen error that turned what looked like a double play ball into runners on first and second for Jesse Carlson.

One run scored on Erick Aybar’s RBI single and two more counted on Abreu’s double that a fan scooped up, making it 8-1. Aybar was allowed to score from first on the play as the umpires ruled he would have made it home even if the fan did not touch the ball, despite the protestations of Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston to the contrary.

The rubber match of the three-game series goes Thursday afternoon, when Brian Tallet (3-3, 4.26) starts for Toronto against John Lackey (1-1, 6.05) for L.A.