Royals Finally Look God Awful in a Game, Fall to Jays 8-4

Well you kind of knew a game like this was coming. The Royals had played so well over the first nine games that you figured they had a stinker of a game overdue. The thing is the Royals looked about as bad as you could in a game, yet managed to hang around this game and were only down a run as the Jays came to bat in the sixth.

Luis Mendoza was pretty hittable, and it didn't help that the Royals were seemingly tossing the ball all over the park without any regard to where it would land. Sal Perez uncharacteristically uncorked two throwing errors, Moose threw a ball away for an error, and Jeff Francoeur air-mailed a throw from right-field that allowed Emilio Bonifacio to get a Little League home run. Mendoza managed to settle down enough to last until the sixth inning when Ned inexplicably did not have anyone in the pen warming to start the inning, then when he did get working with his managerial magic, called upon Luke Hochevar. Luke was Lukish, allowing all of his inherited runs to score, but looking pretty good after that, striking out five in two plus innings of work for a deceiving pitching line that will be good enough to keep earning him chances, but not good enough for him to bring much value to the club. Viva la Luke.

As bad as the Royals played, they didn't really seem out of it though until those three sixth inning runs. And even then, they only trailed by four. If only they could have mustered any offense against vaunted reliever Aaron Loup.

On another note, Jose Reyes looked like he got a major "owie" sliding into second and will likely be out for the rest of the series, if not an extended period of time. Jose Bautista took the Golden Sombrero. JC Gutierrez kinda sorta redeemed himself a bit. I polished off a few Boulevards. So it wasn't a total loss of a night.