Blue Jays 0 Royals 5: James Shields shuts down Jays

Royals 5 Blue Jays 0

That wasn't fun.

We couldn't hit James Shields. Well, we did have 3 hits against him in 7 innings, 2 singles and a Rajai Davis triple. We didn't get our first hit until Edwin Encarnacion singled in the 4th. Before this games, Shields was 11-6 with a 3.22 ERA against us. He's beat us more than any other team, though he is 7-3 with a 2.66 ERA against the Rangers, so they don't have fun with him either.

The Royals got 1 run in the first, Emilio Bonifacio singled, stole second, went to third on J.P. Arencibia's throwing error. Even standing up. JP can throw one into center field. Emilio scored on Eric Hosmer's ground out.

The Royals' half of the third was just a mess. Jarrod Dyson singled and stole second, another bad throw from JP, but Reyes was able to field it. Then Alcides Escobar grounded to Reyes. We got Dyson in a run down, but Reyes was trailing Dyson to closely and Dyson ran into to him, interference was the correct call, and instead of 1 out and runner on first, we had runners on the corners and no outs.

Alex Gordon singled to right, scoring Dyson and Rajai rainbowed a throw towards third, allowing Gordon to go to second. Rajai had no shot at Escobar going to third. If we don't lead the league in outfielders throwing to the wrong base, some other team is awful at it. Bonifacio singled to center and drove home Escobar . Eric Hosmer singled to right to drive home two more.

It was 5-0 and the game was pretty much over, though they would play for another couple of hours.

J.A. Happ went 4.0, allowed 6 hits (a couple of them were popups that fell between the infielders and outfielders), 5 runs, 3 earned, 1 walk and 3 strikeouts. He wasn't good, but he wasn't helped by the bad play.

Chad Jenkins threw 3 scoreless innings, with 2 hits allow. Neil Wagner and Dustin McGowan pitched a scoreless inning each. Nice to see Dustin back.

Ryan Goins went 0 for 4, dropping his average to .353, under .400 for the first time and his first game without a hit. He did turn a really nice double play. Anthony Gose was 0 for 3, with 2 strikeouts. He had a good at bat, going 14 pitches before striking out to Luke Hochevar. Kevin Pillar looked particularly awful at the plate, 0 for 2 with 2 strikeouts.

No Jays of the Day. Lets give an honorary mention to Jenkins for the 3 good innings of relieve. It wasn't his fault we didn't climb back into the game.

Suckage? Only Happ gets the number (-.266 ERA), but his defense let him down. Let's give one to JP for the bad throw and the 4 stolen bases allowed. I'd give one to Rajai for his throw, but he also had the triple, so it balances out.

The GameThread was pretty decent for an awful Jays performance on a beautiful Sunday after. 24 of us put up 320 comments.  expos&nordiques4ever led us with 39, a gritty effort. The man brings veteran presents.