Blue Jays’ Dylan Cease sends Angels’ hitters back into a slump

TORONTO — Just when the Angels were shaking their weeks-long slump at the plate, they ran into Dylan Cease.

After the Angels scored 12 runs in their previous two games, the Toronto Blue Jays’ $210 Million Man shut them out over seven innings, and the Angels lost, 2-0, on Friday night.

Cease, who signed the largest contract for a free agent pitcher last winter, struck out 12 and did not walk anyone. The Angels didn’t have a baserunner against him until the fourth inning.

After striking out five times in the first three innings, the Angels at least had some better at-bats against Cease over the next four. They had five hits and hit a few balls hard, including one especially frustrating hard out.

Zach Neto led off the fourth with a single, and then Mike Trout hit a 105 mph bullet down the third base line. Kazuma Okamoto snagged the one-hopper on his back-hand and then started a double play.

“Cease is tough,” Manager Kurt Suzuki said. “I thought really honestly like it could have went either way. We smoked some balls off him and you got nothing to show for it. Okamoto makes a great play. Neto smokes that ball to center (a 106 mph lineout in the seventh). It easily changed the game, you know what I mean? Credit to them. They played good defense.”

Once Cease was out of the game, the Angels had another chance. Pinch-hitter Vaughn Grissom led off the eighth with a double against Jeff Hoffman. The Angels stranded him, though. Grissom was at third with one out, when Neto popped out and Trout struck out.

The lack of offense wasted a nice job from the Angels’ bullpen after starter Reid Detmers had a frustrating outing.

Detmers issued a career-high six walks, after walking just nine hitters in his first seven starts. Suzuki and Detmers both felt the walks were more a product of the Blue Jays’ approach than his control. The Blue Jays swung at just 18% of Detmers’ pitches that were out of the zone. The major league average is 30%.

“I felt really good,” Detmers said. “I thought pitches were really good. They just weren’t swinging. I made a lot of really quality pitches. When I was in the zone, they fouled a lot of pitches off. So I was trying to get a little bit more out of the zone and then they would just spit on it. It was definitely a grind. Props to them, staying to their game plan.”

Detmers also could have used some help from catcher Sebastian Rivero. Rivero challenged ball four on a 3-and-2 pitch to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the first inning. It was just barely outside. While that might have been a worthwhile challenge, since it was close and had a chance to end the inning, it might have made Rivero gun-shy with the Angels’ last challenge.

In the second inning, he neglected to challenge several other pitches, in one case leading directly to a walk. In the fourth, Rivero was called for catcher’s interference, negating what would have been an inning-ending double play.

Despite all of that, Detmers only gave up two runs. He also got some help from right-hander José Fermin, who retired Guerrero on a line drive to strand two of Detmers’ runners in the fourth.

Fermin and Brent Suter shut down the Blue Jays over the next two innings.

Kirby Yates then made his Angels debut with a scoreless inning. Yates, who signed a $5 million deal in the offseason, missed the start of the season with a knee injury.

Alek Manoah followed by making his Angels debut with a scoreless inning. Manoah was an All-Star with the Blue Jays before injuries derailed his career. He missed the start of this season recovering from a finger injury. He last pitched in the majors two years ago, before undergoing Tommy John surgery.

“It was good, man,” Manoah said. “Felt like I debuted again. It’s been a long time. It’s good to go out there, pump some strikes, get a couple outs.”