Royals Edge Blue Jays 7-6

Ed note: Max was out this afternoon, presumably devoured by dragons or zombies or pirates or zombie pirate dragons, so I thought I’d just make some random notes about the game to save him the trouble. Unfortunately, I also just got home for the day and missed the game. Fortunately, I do have some random thoughts and you didn’t really want to read a generic recap anyway.

I can’t find the actual AP site anymore for the stories about the Royals. They used to be here but since the end of last month, it’s not updated anymore. So, instead I’m going to be quoting a little from CBS’s site which uses the AP recap.

TORONTO (AP) Jorge Soler homered and had two RBI, Brad Keller pitched five innings to win for the first time since May 22 and the Kansas City Royals beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-6 Sunday.

Back in grade school, wasn’t the introduction supposed to make your most important points? That doesn’t feel like it captures the essence of the game. Just a quick look at the line score makes me think “hey, Jays got 5 in the 2nd and the Royals answered with 5 in the 3rd” and the was the big deal. However, I guess I’m not sure how to succinctly write about that in a compelling way. The 2nd and 3rd innings get mentioned in the 5th and 7th paragraphs of the AP recap, respectively.

Soler reached base three times as the Royals snapped a three-game losing streak and won for the first time in six games north of the border... Soler lost Luke Maile’s fly ball in the sun, leading to a two-run triple, Eric Sogard hit an RBI single and Smoak followed with a two-run homer.

Soler’s three time on base, HR, 2 RBI game doesn’t look so hot when viewed in that light. So he was a positive for two runs but if he doesn’t botch the “triple”, it’s the third out and a scoreless inning. I mean, geez, even on MLB.com, the “hit” is generously listed as “Maile’s sun-aided, 2-run triple”. That should have been an error. Perhaps it’s fitting that while I wanted to bash the story leading with pitcher wins, those 5 runs should have been unearned. So maybe Keller’s 6-run PITCHER WIN day doesn’t look so silly if he gives up 1 earned instead of 6.

With the Royals leading 6-5, Soler hit his home run. Then Justin Smoak answered with his second home run of the game. That was the final margin of victory as the Royals bullpenned to victory behind McCarthy, Diekman, and Kennedy. For a while, the aforementioned Smoak was a popular target of frustration on this website. Many people* thought the Royals should have taken him over Eric Hosmer. His career hasn’t exactly gone according to plan and one of his most recent mentions on this site was a Q&A with Lookout Landing where he was dubbed the “Sadness Sausage encased in human skin”.

*600 comments and an overflow thread on draft day in 2008!

The Blue Jays really do have an MLB family thing going on their roster. They have Cavan Biggio, son of HOF Craig Biggio. It’s pretty obvious who the dad of Vladimir Guerrero Jr is. But they also have Lourdes Gurriel Jr. I went to the Astros-Blue Jays game in Houston on Father’s Day and Lourdes Gurriel Sr. threw out the first pitch. He was wearing a jersey that was half Astros and half Blue Jays (pic in article) as he’s also the father of Yuri Gurriel for the Astros. As the linked Houston Chronicle article notes, he was a “former Cuban League player and 1992 Olympic gold medalist”.

Finally, I was going to ask “Is it ‘salvaging a series’ if the team wins the fourth game in a four game series after losing the first three?” That seems only acceptable if you win game 3 of a 3 game series. But then I realized, this was only game three. Isn’t it kindof weird to have a 4 game series that stretches from Friday to Monday? It feels like they’re always Thursday through Sunday. Maybe Friday thru Monday is a “metric weekend”.

The series finale is tomorrow at 12:07 Royals time: Sparkman vs Richard. Does the :07 have a Canada Day significance?