Royals Fall To Blue Jays In Series Finale

This wasn’t a high-scoring game, but there were plenty of fireworks for fans of both teams to either enjoy or roll their eyes over.

There was clearly some unpleasantness between Josh Donaldson and Edinson Volquez which was only amplified when Volquez hit Donaldson in the first inning. Words were exchanged and warnings were issued to both benches.

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The Royals couldn’t do anything against R.A. Dickey today who pitched seven innings and only gave up two hits. Volquez was sharp as well besides giving up a two-run homer to Chris Collabello after a leadoff single by Edwin Encarnacion in the fourth inning. He also got some help in the third inning in the form of a flashy play by Cheslor Cuthbert who started at third base today.

Ryan Madson came into the game in the seventh inning and gave up a single to Ryan Goins before eventually hitting Troy Tulowitzki with a pitch. It didn’t necessarily look intentional though I can’t deny that my Roys-colored glasses could be having an effect. Regardless, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was ejected from the game after arguing with the home plate umpire. After Josh Donaldson struck out, Jose Bautista hit a ground-rule double to score another run and make the count 3-0 in favor of the Blue Jays.

In the eighth inning, the Blue Jays recorded two outs before Jays reliever Aaron Sanchez threw an inside pitch to Escobar that missed and followed that up with a pitch that hit him. Donaldson and Volquez both started yapping again and Sanchez was tossed as the benches cleared. Nothing happened but somehow John Gibbons returned to the field of play despite being tossed in the previous inning. Bench coach DeMarlo Hale was tossed as well.

Once everything died down, Robert Asuna came in and gave up a two-run homer to Ben Zobrist who has been killing Jays’ pitching.

Unfortunately, the Blue Jays were able to get those runs back in the bottom of the inning. Kelvin Herrera gave up back-to-back walks to lead things off and then another with one out to load the bases. Ben Revere hit a sacrifice fly to score one and Tulowitzki singled to score another and that was it as the Royals lost 5-2.

The Royals were only able to snag one out of the four games in Toronto and move on to a three-game series with Detroit starting on Tuesday.