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Tonight, the Toronto Blue Jays dominated the Kansas City Royals, 9-2. Many Royals stood erect on the basepaths, but they couldn’t get the climax they were hoping for thanks, in part, to some very good D from the Blue Jays. The result was a limp offense and a night that ended in disappointment.
For a while, the Royals hung in there. Mike Montgomery didn’t have a great outing—he’s not really good at this point in his career, unfortunately—but he didn’t get chased off the field. Thanks to a pair of unfortunate grounders, the Blue Jays got lucky and scored—twice. Montgomery twirled his balls well enough afterwards, notching four strikeouts against one walk. Still, he didn’t get out of the fifth inning after yielding a walk and two hits. Monty then took the walk of shame back to the dugout with his team down 4-0.
For most of the game, the Royals were afflicted with a case of the blues. The blue balls, that is. They threatened to score by putting multiple baserunners on in the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth innings. They came away with no runs. Kansas City finally inserted themselves into the score column with a run in the eighth inning and scored again in the ninth inning, but it was too late because Bad Josh happened.
Josh Staumont is a talented pitcher, but sometimes he just doesn’t have the requisite command, as his 16.7% walk rate in Triple-A this season suggested. Well, tonight he walked two, but unfortunately his lack of command also led to some easy pitches begging to be conquered.
Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. single-handedly catapulted the Blue Jays ahead by stroking a massive dong with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth, and at that point the game was simply over.
Tonight’s loss was the 69th for the Royals in this season. August has yet to begin. Yet another 100-loss season seems to loom on the horizon, but tonight’s game wasn’t all terribleness. With the victory, the Blue Jays move one game further down—er, up, however you consider it—in the race to the top of the 2020 MLB draft rankings. Kansas City holds a two game lead over Toronto for the third overall pick.