Blue Jays 4 Royals 2: game ends with J.P. Arencibia throwing out a base stealer

Royals 2 Blue Jays 4

That was fun.

I would bet that there hasn't been a Jays game this season that ended with J.P. Arencibia throwing out a base runner. And did you see, he threw from his feet, instead of his knees. Great work JP. Knew you could do it. Keep throwing like a man.

We were down by 1 going into the bottom of the 8th. Munenori Kawasaki singled to start the inning. Anthony Gose couldn't get down the bunt to move him up. It was made tougher by having him try to slap a hit on the 1-0 count. Jose Reyes popped one up just between the center fielder and middle infielders. Then Ryan Goins hit a double play ball, right at short stop Alcides Escobar, but Goins is magic and Escobar booted it. Kawasaki, also magic, scored from second to tie the game. Walks to Edwin Encarnacion, Brett Lawrie and Rajai Davis gave us a 2-run lead. Thanks Royals.

Casey Janssen made it interesting in the 9th, hitting lead off hitter David Lough. A strikeout later, George Kattaras singled. Alex Gordon was nice enough to strikeout too. Then, with Emilio Bonifacio up,  JP threw out Chris Getz trying to steal. Thank you, JP, I'm pretty sure my laptop wouldn't have survived me throwing it across the room, if Emilio had beat us there.

R.A. Dickey had a very good start, 8 innings, 7 hits, 2 earned, 2 walks and 6 strikeouts. He also made a nice catch on a line drive back at him. Brett Lawrie made his daily highlight reel play at third base too.

On offense, we didn't do a lot. We didn't score until the 7th inning. We had 10 hits, all singles except for Rajai's double. Reyes went 3 for 4.

Encarnacion had 2 hits, including his 1,000th career hit. Congratulations Edwin. That's a great milestone.

Every starter had a hit except for Brett Lawrie (he had a bases loaded walk in the 8th though), Moises Sierra (0 for 2, before being pinch hit for by Kawasaki) and Anthony Gose (0 for 3).

Goins, going 1 for 4, sees his batting average drop to .400. He has get a hit in his first at bat tomorrow, or he'll drop under .400.

We also ran into 3 outs on the base paths. Goins was thrown out at third, trying to go first to third on a single to left. Jose Reyes and Josh Thole were thrown out at second, trying to stretch a single into a double. Thole's did drive in our first run. We tried to run ourselves out of the game.

Jays of the Day are Goins (.218 WPA), Dickey (.150), Reyes (.111), Lawrie (.119) and Kawasaki (.097, for his pinch hit single and his speed, scoring from second). I'm giving JP honorable mention for the caught stealing.

Suckage goes to DeRosa (-.140, strikeout in his pinch hit attempt) and Gose (-.133).

K.C. manager Ned Yost was thrown out of the game in the 8th. He wasn't happy with the strike zone or with plate umpire Will Little who yesterday called Bonifacio out when he was clearly safe.

Jays end a terrible month with a 3 game win streak.

Nice GameThread, 19 of us put up 381 comments. Alan F just beat me out for the lead, a late inning come from behind win.