Blue Jays outlast Angels in extra innings after down by 6 runs

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The Blue Jays and Los Angeles Angels brought out their Sunday best in one of those games featuring just about everything and anything in a perplexing and thoroughly entertaining rubber match.

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It was so good, so dramatic, so competitive and so confusing that the game required extra innings.

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Once the dizzying day had finally ended, the Blue Jays would emerge with a pulsating 12-11 win.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was hit on the toe, Bo Bichette on the hand, while Matt Chapman hit his first-career grand slam.

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And the hits kept coming, not to mention the runs.

There was small ball mixed in with long ball and moments of defensive wizardry.

Above all else, there was raw drama.

Chapman came to the plate with runners at the corners and none out in a 6-6 game in the sixth inning.

When you’re hot, you’re hot, and Chapman is as hot as there is in MLB, fighting off a pitch to deliver Bichette on a soft liner to centre as the Jays took their first lead.

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Toronto would plate 10 runs in succession against a shellshocked Angels team that looked to be cruising when it led 6-0.

Credit the Halos because they refused to quit.

The ninth inning provided L.A. with its opportunity to respond to Toronto’s magical sixth.

Mike Trout would step up to the plate with two on and one out with Jordan Romano hoping to nail down the win.

Trout hit homers in the first two games of the series.

Romano struck out Trout swinging as the suspense and stress intensified knowing Shohei Ohtani was on deck.

Romano fell behind 3-0 and then issued a walk with an inside pitch to load the bases.

Up stepped Anthony Rendon.

Romano hit Rendon to force in a run as the tying run stood at second base.

Hunter Renfroe then hit a double down the line to left and the game was tied as the afternoon’s roller coaster took yet another dramatic turn.

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Kevin Kiermaier drove in his fifth run of the game to give the Jays an 11-10 lead in the 10th inning.

George Springer then recorded his first hit of the game to score Kiermaier.

Trevor Richards was on the mound in the 10th.

L.A. was down to its final strike with runners at the corner.

A walk loaded the bases, bringing Trout to the plate as the game was dripping with drama.

Trout had struck out three times in a row.

Richards fell behind 3-1 before Trout hit a foul ball down the left-field line as the count went full.

Richards heaved a wild pitch as the Angels scored a run, bringing Ohtani back to the plate.

Enter Tim Mayza, who had no room for error.

He got ahead of Ohtani 0-2 and then forced Ohtani into hitting a soft grounder to second.

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Game over.

Toronto now returns home following a winning road trip, a 6-4 team that will be feted at Tuesday night’s home opener.

Whatever happens in the next days and weeks, it’s highly doubtful it will match the events of Sunday when the teams combined for 26 hits and 23 runs.

There are areas of concern on this Jays team, but the way they hit, and especially Chapman, the way they run, the way they can win in a variety of ways, fans in Toronto will be in for a treat.

The obvious area of deficiency involves the team’s rotation.

So good in his season debut, so unfortunate in his second start, it’s been a so-so beginning for Yusei Kikuchi.

In truth, not much went right for the lefty, who followed up a strong spring training by tossing five innings of one-run ball in Kansas City, allowing three hits, while walking one and recording two strikeouts in his season debut.

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His second start wasn’t as good.

Kikuchi began by throwing 73 pitches through the first three innings before he was relieved with one out in the fourth inning.

He gave up nine hits, including three home runs, and six runs, all earned, while striking out six.

It looked like all was lost until the fateful sixth came along when it became a 6-6 game.

Turns out that was just the beginning.

YUSEI WHAT!

Hard-luck hurler Kikuchi couldn’t catch a break when the Angels came to the plate in their first at-bat.

He coaxed Trout into hitting a ball up the middle only to see it deflect off Kikuchi, allowing Trout to reach base.

Then came a routine pop up to shallow left off the bat of Rendon.

Daulton Varsho lost it in the sun, allowing a runner, Ohtani, who reached base on a force out, to cross home plate from first base.

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Up stepped Renfroe two batters later and he promptly turned on a pitch for a two-run bomb.

What could have been a scoreless inning turned into a 3-0 Angels lead.

Varsho was in left with Kiermaier in centre and Whit Merrifield in right field.

Danny Jansen (stomach bug) was available and caught Kikuchi, whose first-inning folly set the tone for the rest of his day.

Jansen, clearly playing under duress, struck out in his first three at-bats.

Alejandro Kirk pinch hit for Jansen in the seventh inning and was intentionally walked to load the bases.

It was Kirk who couldn’t locate a foul pop up by Trout in extra innings that would have ended the game had Kirk been able to secure it.

CHAPMAN OF THE MOMENT

As the Jays return to Toronto for Tuesday night’s long-awaited and much-anticipated home opener, it was a homecoming for Matt Chapman, who went to high school in Orange County and later played at nearby Cal State Fullerton, which produced two-sports star Damon Allen, a CFL Hall of Famer, in an era when athletes played more than one sport.

During Chapman’s stay in Anaheim, he hit his first homer of the season and 11th at Angel Stadium, capping his stay with another bomb in Sunday’s series finale.

He has produced at least one hit in nine of the Jays’ season-opening 10 games.

Chapman has been scalding the ball, getting on base in his first at-bat Sunday with a bullet to left for a single.

fzicarelli@postmedia.com