The wins keep on rolling: tonight, the Kansas City Royals walked into the home of the Toronto Blue Jays and won 5-3 with a wild ninth inning that featured a pair of crucial defensive masterpieces.
In the first inning, both the Royals and Jays traded blows. Carter Jensen immediately singled against Blue Jays starter Max Scherzer; he was immediately followed by Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino walks to load the bases. Salvador Perez hit into a double play, an unfortunate result that at least scored Jensen. Fortunately for Kansas City, Toronto also loaded the bases in the first inning and also only scored one (a sacrifice fly from Jesús Sánchez).
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From there, the game remained scoreless until the fifth inning, although not without traffic on the pasepaths. Royals starter Seth Lugo gave up half a dozen hits and a walk in his five innings, while Scherzer allowed nine total baserunners in his five innings.
Three said baserunners happened in the fifth inning. This time, Salvy singled to score Witt from third base and give the Royals a 2-1 lead—a lead which they would not relinquish.
The very next inning, the Royals extended their lead to three. Against relievers Braydon Fisher and Mason Fluharty, Nick Loftin and John Rave notched singles. Kyle Isbel then bunted, fueled by a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. throwing error. Jensen then hit a sac fly.
In the ninth inning, Rave hit another RBI single against submarine righty Tyler Rogers. Funky delivery means nothing against the Raver!
By this time, though, the bullpen had entered the game. And the Kansas City bullpen has been, shall we say, unreliable this year. The seventh inning was the first inning that made me go “uh oh.” Connor Thomas replaced John Schreiber and responded by immediately hitting Andrés Giménez with a pitch. This brought up Alejandro Kirk…who fortunately hit into a double play to defuse the situation. George Springer then grounded out.
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The eighth inning was similar. Nate Pearson replaced Thomas, and after a strikeout walked Nathan Lukes on five not-close pitches. Guerrero hit a booming double to right-center field to put runners on second and third with one out. But Kazuma Okamoto popped up, and after Ernie Clement hit a foul ball into his cylinder he hit a lazy fly ball. This put the Blue Jays at 0-10 with runners in scoring position.
This set up the ninth inning. Tyler Tolbert had entered the game to play second base after Michael Massey bonked his head on the ground after a nifty play to throw out Lukes. He left the game out of a precaution.
For a second, it looked like Stephen Cruz would cruise through the inning. He quickly got two outs, both grounders to second base. The second one was an excellent dive and throw by Tolbert, who broke and timed his play perfectly.
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Then the wheels fell apart a bit. Daz Cameron singled. Brett Bateman singled and advanced to second base on defensive indifference. Lukes then hit a single to left-center field, which scored Cameron and Bateman to put the game at 5-3, Royals with Guerrero coming up.
Only Bateman tried to stretch that single into a double. And he was thrown out for the final out of the game.
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It was a beautiful play. Collins cut the bouncing ball off well, spinning to throw it accurately to Witt, the cutoff man. Witt then rifled the ball with perfect accuracy to Tolbert, who applied the tag efficiently and effectively. Just…wow.
At 59-74, the Royals are a significant longshot to make the playoffs. Yet they have scored nine straight, and sources tell me that if they continue to win every game, they’ll make the playoffs.
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