Series Recap: Oh, Those Royals
By Cam Lewis
6 years agoLike the title says: Oh, those Royals. They did what they do best — fuck with the Jays. By dropping two of three games to Kansas City this week, the Blue Jays officially won’t reach .500 at any point this season. Damn. The dream is finally dead. It’s fitting it came at the hands of the Royals, I feel.
What happened?
On Tuesday, Marcus Stroman put together another excellent start, holding the Royals to one run over seven innings. The Jays jumped on Ian Kennedy and Kansas City’s ‘pen with a handful of doubles for an easy win. 5-2 Blue Jays.
On Wednesday, Brett Anderson had his worst showing as a Blue Jay, getting pounded for eight runs while recording just four outs. The rest of the Jays bullpen also got hammered by the Royals lineup in this laugher. 15-5 Royals.
On Thursday, the Royals offence dried up, but so did the Toronto’s. Kansas City scraped across one run in the third inning, and that’s all they would need as Jason Vargas complete shut the Jays down. 1-0 Royals.
[tweet https://twitter.com/thejaysnation/status/911044513744904192 hide_thread=’true’ align=’center’
Things of note
- Marcus Stroman’s very good start got him down to a 3.01 ERA for the season. He likely has two more outings, one against New York on Sunday and another in New York to close out the season. He isn’t going to win the Cy Young because of Corey Kluber and Chris Sale, but Stroman finishing with a sub-3.00 would be a great plus in an otherwise bad season.
- Justin Smoak only has nine more games to reach 40 home runs. He has 38 right now and has slowed down in September, largely, I’m guessing, because of that nagging calf injury. He hasn’t had this many plate appearances before in his career, so there’s probably some fatigue there.
- Brett Anderson’s game was very bad, and considering he left his previous start due to a blister, you have to wonder if that was effecting him at all on Wednesday.
- Carlos Ramirez allowed four runs in one inning over that Wednesday blowout, which was the first time all season he had allowed a run. I was hoping he would make it through all of 2017 with a shutout, but apparently Ramirez is, in fact, a human after all.
Up next…
The Jays will host the Yankees for their final home series of the season. It’ll also very likely be your last chance to see Jose Bautista patrol right field as a Blue Jay at Rogers Centre. Go out and cheer for this legend while you still can. There aren’t many reasons left to watch this team, but that’s one of them.
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