Aaron Sanchez hit a bit of a speed bump, allowing 4 earned runs over 6 innings of work as the Blue Jays fell 4-2 at the hands of the Kansas City Royals.
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KANSAS CITY: The Royals are 5-0 in Duffy’s last five starts following a quality start in his last appearance and 4-0 in his last four outings versus a team with a winning record. Kansas City CF Paulo Orlando is 11-for-22 with a solo homer and three runs scored in August.2.
While Sanchez didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning when Lorenzo Cain blooped a single into shallow centre field out of the reach of both shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and centre fielder Kevin Pillar, it all unraveled in the following inning.
“It’s not like I thought he was out there distracted or rattled or anything”, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. They did exactly what I wanted them to do: keep the ball on the ground.
The KC Royals improved to 52-58 with the 4-2 win, and now trail the Cleveland Indians by an nearly insurmountable 11.0 games in the AL Central.
The Blue Jays opted earlier this week to go with a six-man rotation instead of putting the 24-year-old Sanchez in the bullpen to limit his innings. Them asking me, me giving my input, and figuring out what’s best.
“At the end of the day everybody is happy and we can move on”. “And all this is behind”.
The All-Star righty pitched only 102 innings a year ago, including 9 2/3 in the minors on a rehab assignment after a shoulder injury.
YANKEES 13, INDIANS 7: Starlin Castro hit a third-inning grand slam off Josh Tomlin that gave the Yankees a six-run lead at NY, while Jacoby Ellsbury had his first four-hit game since May 3 previous year.
NY trailed 6-1 before rallying with two runs each in the fifth and seventh.
Duffy (8-1) struck out a team-record 16 and permitted just one hit over eight innings at Tampa Bay in his last start.
Travis led off the game with a home run, then ripped a 1-2 pitch from Kelvin Herrera (1-3) into the Royals’ bullpen for his first career multihomer game.
After one run came in, it looked like Sanchez just might escape the bases loaded situation, as he got a pop up to travis, followed by a key out at the plate as Josh Donaldson forced out Orlando at home. Kevin Pillar had two hits and scored a run.
Eric Hosmer provided the biggest hit of the night, lining a two-out, two-run single into center field in the bottom of the fifth.
Alcides Escobar’s infield single scored Kansas City’s first run.
“That inning they did a really good job of playing small ball”, Sanchez said. “Hos came through. It was a big two-out hit”. If I go back, I don’t think I’d take anything back. It was the first multi-homer game of Travis’ career. Mookie Betts of the Red Sox was the last to accomplish that feat in the majors, doing it last month.
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Verlander (12-6) allowed only two runs and struck out nine, but the Mets ran his pitch count up to 103 to force him out of the game at Detroit. The Blue Jays are among the best in the Major League Baseball with 72 quality starts. They’re also 5-0 in Duffy’s last five starts with four days of rest, are a ideal 7-0 in his last seven starts, and are 20-6 in his last 26 home starts.
