Quiet night for Royals bats and short night for Mike Montgomery in loss to Blue Jays
Royals starting pitcher Mike Montgomery, still building up his pitch count after spending the first three-plus months of the regular season as a reliever, couldn’t get deep into the game and the offense gave him zero run support. That’s a tough combination to overcome in any game.
Despite a solid night from the bullpen to keep the game within reach up until the ninth inning, the Royals offense never really got started in a 9-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in front of an announced 18,379 in the second game of a three-game set at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday night.
The teams will wrap-up their series on Wednesday afternoon, and the Royals will try to avoid a sweep and salvage two wins out of their seven-game homestand.
Blue Jays starting pitcher Sean Reid-Foley (1-1) held the Royals scoreless for five innings despite allowing four hits and four walks. Reid-Foley has now made two of his three starts this season against the Royals (40-69), and he’s allowed two runs in 10 1/3 innings.
Royals hitters stranded 14 men on base. Hunter Dozier, Nicky Lopez and Jorge Soler had two hits apiece, and rookie catcher Meibrys Viloria drove in the Royals’ first run with an eighth-inning RBI double to score Lopez. Cheslor Cuthbert’s RBI double off the wall in the ninth drove in their other run.
“We just couldn’t get a big hit,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “The game had the feel that we were gonna be kinda out of it the whole game. Battle, battle, battle and then nothing to show for it. Then boom, we were right there. We were except for the diving catch in right field. That was a big play for them. It was a momentum breaker for us.”
The diving catch by Blue Jays right fielder Randal Grichuk came on a sinking line-drive by Alex Gordon to end the eighth with Cuthbert and Whit Merrifield on base.
Soler reached base safely in his 26th consecutive game. Soler’s career-best streak is also the longest active streak in the majors.
The Blue Jays (42-67) entered the night having hit 15 home runs in five games against the Royals this season, including three on Monday night.
Montgomery (1-4) steered clear of the long ball, but he gave up four runs on seven hits (six singles) and one walk. He also struck out four.
“They were an aggressive team going into it so that was the plan,” Montgomery said of his heavy use of the change-up early. “A couple of broken-bat hits and they go up 2-0. But from there you just try to keep your team in it. Then in the fifth I get the ground ball I needed and it just goes past third. Sometimes it goes that way.
Montgomery, who made his third start of the season, didn’t get through five innings, and left the game with a runner on and one out in the fifth inning after having thrown 78 pitches. He’d gotten through five innings on 64 pitches against Cleveland in his previous start on Thursday.
The Blue Jays started the game off with four singles in the first five at-bats including RBI singles by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the first inning as the Royals fell behind 2-0 out of the gate.
Montgomery gave up two more runs in the fifth on a walk and a double followed by a one-out two-run single by Freddy Galvis, the last batter he faced before turning the outing over to the bullpen.
“I was talking with (pitching coach) Cal (Eldred) between innings,” Montgomery said. “He was kinda just like hey, those are good pitches. Don’t look too much into it. We went back and watched the video. There was a couple that I thought were up that they hit hard, but for the most part they had maybe two hard-hit balls.
“But how many balls did we have hit hard that were outs? That’s baseball. That’s why it’s a frustrating game at times. You’ve just got to not look too much into it and keep going. It’s a long season, a frustrating night. But we just keep moving forward.”
Royals relievers Kevin McCarthy (2/3 innings), Kyle Zimmer (2.0 innings) and Richard Lovelady (1.0 innings) provided scoreless relief.
Reliever Josh Staumont (1.0 innings) loaded the bases in the ninth and nearly escaped unscathed, but a fielding error by shortstop Humberto Arteaga extended the inning and allowed a run to score. The next batter, Guerrero Jr., blasted a grand slam an estimated 402 feet to left field.
All five of the Blue Jays’ ninth-inning runs were unearned.
Wednesday afternoon’s series finale features Royals starter Jakob Junis (6-9, 5.03) and Blue Jays starter Jacob Waguespack (1-1, 5.63) with first pitch scheduled for 12:15 p.m.
This story was originally published July 30, 2019 at 11:00 PM.
