Yariel Rodriguez deserved better from his teammates on Canada Day.
The Cuban-born righty pitched the game of his young major-league career before a near-sellout crowd of 39,265 on Monday, but is still looking for his first career win at the MLB level because his offence couldn’t push across a single run for him.
Of course, it didn’t help his case that two of the hottest hitters normally in the Jays lineup weren’t part of the proceedings in a 3-1 Houston Astros win.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. woke up feeling the effects of that Gerrit Cole fastball that caught him on the two smallest fingers on his right hand in Sunday’s loss to the New York Yankees and was held out of the lineup.
But the more unexpected absence was that of Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was a late scratch from the lineup with a left knee injury that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Twice the Jays loaded the bases, once in the second against starter Hunter Brown and again in the eighth against reliever Bryan Abreu, but both times failed to bring a run in.
Rodriguez, meanwhile, took a perfect game into the fifth and with one out there suffered his only big mistake of the day, serving up a first-pitch homer to Jeremy Pena for what turned out to be all the visiting Astros would need on this day.
Rodriguez, who was making his second start since a stint on the injured list and just the sixth big-league start of his career, wound up getting through 6 2/3 innings with that Pena homer the lone lasting blemish on his afternoon.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
He allowed one other hit and walked two in the seventh, when he was pulled, but pitched well enough to win.
Brown looked gettable early, particularly in that second inning when he loaded the bases but settled down to shut out the Jays through six.
The Astros bullpen did the rest, though closer Josh Hader gave up a two-out solo homer to Ernie Clement in the ninth.
Houston would get two insurance runs in the top of the ninth off Chad Green that turned out to be very big after Clement’s ninth inning at-bat. Designated hitter Yordan Alvarez followed an Alex Bregman single with his 17th homer of the year for what turned out to be the game’s deciding runs.
The teams are back at it on Tuesday evening, when Jose Berrios will look for his eighth win of the year against Houston righty Spencer Arrighetti. First pitch is scheduled for 7:07 p.m.