Anais Nin once wrote that she kept a diary in order to live life twice. After the last couple of games, Loyals is proving a case study in the problem with the practice. Some things are so great that you want to experience them over and over again. Others, on the other hand, just need to be endured once rather than relived and savored.
Ned Yost has apparently entered the “well, I don’t know what to do about this, maybe we could just try tinkering with it” phase, as he opted to put Yuniesky Betancourt in the leadoff spot. On the plus side, he wasn’t any worse leading off than he ever is at the plate. He got a couple of hits and even made it to scoring position. Sadly, he still can’t field the ball.
On the plus side, Mike Moustakis is proving quite good at third. He’s got great range, a talent he showed off in the third inning when he dug out a weak grounder and fired it to first for the out. If he can keep it up, he’ll certainly earn the “Moo!” the crowd gives him at every available opportunity.
Alcides Escobar is also repeating his good showing from last year. Of note in this game was a circus stop behind second base in the top of the third. I suppose if you’ve got one middle infielder who’s great and another who sucks, you want the good player at short so he’s moving toward first on most plays. Further, Escobar’s been doing well at the plate (though that may mostly be in comparison to some of his slumping teammates).
Alex Gordon gave the Royals an early lead in the first with a solo shot to center.
For their part, the Blue Jays struggled early. In the second Eric Thames hit a double, but then he negated his hit by getting picked clean trying to steal third. He must have been badly fooled by some aspect of Luis Mendoza’s delivery, because Mendoza didn’t even pitch. He just turned and lobbed it over to Moustakis for the out.
Sadly, Mendoza coughed up a big fourth. He’d given up four runs before Yost yanked him and brought in Everett Teaford.
How many times in the past have we seen a big inning just kill our team? How many times have they just rolled over and played dead for the rest of the game? With that in mind, it’s a step in the right direction when they continue to play, fielding and putting runs on the board despite trailing.
In that spirit, once again it was Escobar to the rescue. In the bottom of the fifth he hit a double that broke his bat and sent a big, sharp, splintery chunk into the stands (fortunately nobody was hurt). Actually, it should have been scored as a single an an error, because left fielder Thames ran right past the ball, fell down and had to backtrack.
By the end of the inning we’d climbed back into a one-run lead. Scoring wrapped up with a two run blast to center by Eric Hosmer. Then Jeff Francoeur popped out to right to end the inning. He’s really been struggling at the plate, at least in the games we’ve seen. Thank goodness he’s been amply demonstrating his strong arm in the field, robbing more than one opponent of extra bases and scoring opportunities.
Ah, but then the Jays regained the lead in the sixth off a two run homer by Colby Rasmus, making a guy in the left field stands with a lot of stupid signs extremely happy. Seriously, this guy had a giant placard proclaiming “Colby jacks the high cheese.” I’ll decline the obvious retorts on the grounds that they would be too easy and/or vulgar.
We might have come back from that, but then Toronto got three runs from two homers in the seventh, and that pretty much put an end to it. Even though the Jays went in order in the last two innings, we couldn’t do anything at the plate to bring us back into the ballgame.
I’ll wrap by backtracking to Mitch Maier’s at bat in the sixth. He struck out looking and then treated umpire Marty Foster to the benefit of his opinion on the subject. We’ve been seeing that a lot so far this season. Perhaps MLB has relaxed the rule about imposing rapid ejection for anyone arguing balls and strikes. Maier in particular has done it more than once. Perhaps he’s just naturally cranky about such things. But maybe he’s feeling and expressing the frustration that has to be running high in the clubhouse, on the field and in the stands.
The box score:
BLUE JAYS (9) AT ROYALS (5) BLUE JAYS AB R H BI ROYALS AB R H BI Yunel Escobar 5 0 1 1 Yuniesky Betancourt 5 0 2 1 Kelly Johnson 2 0 1 0 Alex Gordon 4 2 2 1 Jose Bautista 5 0 0 0 Billy Butler 3 0 0 0 Adam Lind 5 1 1 0 Eric Hosmer 4 1 1 2 Eric Thames 4 1 1 0 Jeff Francoeur 4 0 0 0 Edwin Encarnacion 5 2 3 3 Brayan Pena 4 0 0 0 Brett Lawrie 4 2 2 0 Mike Moustakas 2 0 0 0 Colby Rasmus 4 3 3 4 Alcides Escobar 4 1 4 0 J.P. Arencibia 4 0 2 1 Mitch Maier 3 1 1 1 TOTALS 38 9 14 9 TOTALS 33 5 10 5 BLUE JAYS 000 402 300 -- 9 ROYALS 100 040 000 -- 5 LOB--BLUE JAYS 6, ROYALS 6. 2B--Adam Lind, J.P. Arencibia, Eric Thames, Yuniesky Betancourt, Alcides Escobar. 3B--Mitch Maier. HR--Colby Rasmus (2), Edwin Encarnacion, Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer. HBP--Billy Butler. BLUE JAYS IP H R ER BB SO HR Drew Hutchison 5 1-3 8 5 5 3 4 2 Darren Oliver 1 2-3 1 0 0 0 1 0 Carlos Villanueva 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 ROYALS Luis Mendoza 3 1-3 10 4 4 1 0 0 Everett Teaford 3 2 3 3 3 0 1 Kelvin Herrera 1 2-3 2 2 2 0 1 2 Tim Collins 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 SO--Kelly Johnson, Edwin Encarnacion, Eric Thames, Yuniesky Betancourt, Mitch Maier (2), Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer. BB--Kelly Johnson (3), Eric Thames, Mitch Maier, Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas (2).
Buck Seat: W-- (Youth sports league coach from Nebraska)
Guard: Cops (yeah, Leawood, don’t think you can combine cops and firemen)
Anthem: Canada good, America too long
Umpires
1 Timmons
2 Kellogg
3 Cooper
H Foster
Time: 6:11
Temp: 60-something
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