“Well, there ya go”.
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The Blue Jays now head home for six games, three against Tampa Bay and three against Houston.
The Royals scored 20 runs in their past nine games, while hitting.205 with a.253 on-base percentage and a.309 slugging percentage.
Practically every player in the lineup outside of the red-hot Devon Travis struggled to produce over the seven games.
Gee walked Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion in the third and both scored. You can safely call that a slump.
“Everybody goes through that”, Gibbons said. “We really haven’t been swinging it good since that last homestand. We’ve kind of been in a little rut”. “It’s always tough to play here”. What’d we score, one? Yordano Ventura starts Sunday’s game for the Royals, and it would be nice if Ventura and the bullpen kept the Blue Jays to three runs or fewer and if that happens, nicer still if the Royals find a way to score four runs or more. He struck out seven and walked two.
Travis led off the game with a home run, then ripped a 1-2 pitch from Kelvin Herrera into the Royals’ bullpen for his first career multihomer game.
The loss sends the Blue Jays back home with a winning record on this road trip but the last two games left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. They’re looking to move the ball, move guys. If he can locate it more it will help Liriano get outs much easier.
Will the Rays pull off the upset tonight when they visit the Blue Jays at 7:07PM ET? I’ll just wash this one and look forward to the next one.
“He pitched good enough to win, and they made him work”, Gibson said. “It was one of those days where I felt like I was battling all day”.
Morales led off the second by working Stroman for a walk.
“I just didn’t put it where I wanted to. But, it’s baseball and it’s just one of those plays I didn’t make in the moment and it ended up costing me”.
The Royals added to the lead in the sixth when, with two out, they worked another infield single – a short-hopped grounder that Troy Tulowitzki couldn’t cleanly field – before Raul Mondesi, son of the former Blue Jay of the same name, smacked an RBI triple to the wall in right. It was Stroman’s second throwing error of the day-he airmailed a pickoff attempt in the first-which brings his career total to three.
“Obviously, Mondesi’s extremely fast, so you’ve got to hurry with him”, Stroman said.
“Absolutely, it’s frustrating because I’m usually great with those”, said Stroman.
The longest previous streak of solo home runs came in the year 2000 when they hit 14 in a row.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Royals loaded the bases against reliever Scott Feldman with consecutive singles by Mondesi, Escobar and Cheslor Cuthbert.
“It’s hard to be hot for 162”, losing pitcher Marcus Stroman said. But he was encouraged by his ability to locate his two-seamer down in the zone, a key factor to his season turnaround since early July.
“I kind of blacked out”, Travis said. “It’s just a matter of mixing in my other pitches in certain counts”.
With his sinker and with fastball command, Stroman was able to get his share of ground balls, which is his bread and butter but the Royals found more holes than usual.
The Royals and Blue Jays play again Saturday night with Danny Duffy on the mound for the Royals.
Kendrys Morales changed the seventh inning and bailed out teammates Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer with one mighty swing.
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Still, the Royals never needed those runs as the Blue Jays offence continued to spin its wheels.
