TORONTO — On the last day before sending nearly 20 per cent of its roster to Los Angeles for the all-star game, the Toronto Blue Jays needed vital contributions from some of those players to earn a needed win on Sunday.
All-star catcher Alejandro Kirk hit a tiebreaking, two-run homer in the eighth inning and freshly minted all-star Jordan Romano earned the save as the Blue Jays defeated the Kansas City Royals 4-2 in front of 36,681 at Rogers Centre.
The win allowed the Blue Jays to close out their first half at 50-43, which is an improvement over last season’s 45-42 record at this time. While things haven’t seemed to have gone that smoothly during the past four months, 50 does represent a nice, strong number.
With Sunday’s win, the Blue Jays took three of four from the Royals, though it’s tough to read too much into that as this was a last-place Kansas City club that was missing a whopping 10 players — including outfielders Andrew Benintendi, Michael A. Taylor and Kyle Isbel — who did not meet Canada’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements. That led to a roster that saw several players make their major-league debut during the series.
Nonetheless, the Blue Jays did what they had to do and improved to 4-1 under interim manager John Schneider.
Blue Jays starter Jose Berrios continued his strong July with a stellar outing. Royals second baseman Nicky Lopez led off the game with a single to centre then advanced and scored on consecutive soft contact bloops by Vinnie Pasquantino and Edward Olivares to put the Royals up 1-0.
However, Berrios recovered from that by using his curveball to get back-to-back strikeouts. He allowed a home run to first baseman Nick Pratto in the second inning to put the Royals up 2-0, but settled down nicely from that point on, facing the minimum over the next four innings.
He topped out at 95.9 m.p.h. and relied on a curveball that looked downright deadly at times, responsible for six of the seven strikeouts he generated. In total, Berrios allowed one walk and two runs on seven hits over 6.1 innings and 90 pitches.
It’s a nice sight for the Blue Jays to see the right-hander return to form this month. Following his worst start of the season — against Milwaukee on June 26 when he allowed eight runs over 2.2 innings — he has been steady. Including Sunday, over his last four starts, he has allowed eight earned runs over 23.1 innings (3.09 ERA).
While he hasn’t been dominant this year, at least he is closer to looking like the stabilizing pitcher the Blue Jays hoped they were getting when they traded for him last July and signed him to a seven-year, $131-million deal in December. He was one of only four pitchers to post a sub-4.00 ERA in each of the past five seasons (minimum 10 starts each season), joining the elite company of Jacob deGrom, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer.
Meanwhile, Berrios was matched by Royals starter Kris Bubic. The left-hander kept the Blue Jays’ offence dormant and off-balanced for most of his seven innings using an effective fastball, changeup and curveball combo. Santiago Espinal and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reached on infield hits in the third inning, then came in to score on an error by Royals shortstop and Bobby Witt Jr., and a sacrifice fly by Bo Bichette. That tied the score at 2 and was the only offence the Blue Jays had until Kirk’s homer.
Half an inning later, Romano was on the mound and made quick work of the Royals, retiring three straight.
Prior to the game, he got a nice surprise when he was informed was named to the American League roster for Tuesday’s all-star game at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He will replace New York Yankees starters Gerrit Cole and join teammates Kirk, Guerrero Jr., Alek Manoah and Santiago Espinal — who was named to the team on Saturday — in Los Angeles.
George Springer was also selected but opted not to attend to rest a sore right elbow that has bothered him since late June.
“It’s really special,” said Romano, who is from Markham, Ont. “The coaches put a lot of work in with me. [Bullpen coach Matt] Buschmann, [pitching coach]Pete [Walker], Schneider and the whole staff. To see their hard work and my hard work pay off together, it’s really special.”
The 29-year-old Romano entered Sunday tied for the AL lead with 19 saves. He has posted a 2.73 ERA with 37 strikeouts over 33 innings. “I always wanted to go to an all-star game,” he said. “It wasn’t the ultimate goal, but that was one of my goals.”
With six all-stars, the Blue Jays are tied with the Yankees and Atlanta Braves for the most among major-league clubs.
