Jays Beat Royals

Royals 1 Blue Jays 8

Earl Weaver said the secret to winning baseball is pitching, defense and the three-run homer. Oh sure, Dan mentioned this in the ninth inning. Well, I’m not changing it.

Today we got the first two and two of the third.

Teoscar Hernandez hit a three-run homer in the third and Matt Chapman did it in the fifth. With Alek Manoah being great, that was more than enough. But we put up single runs in the second (Ramiel Tapia singled home Hernandez) and in the sixth (Alejandro Kirk singled in Cavan Biggio).

We had 16 hits. Everyone in the starting lineup had a hit. Chapman and Tapia had three each. Springer, Hernandez, and Biggio had two each. It was nice to see Biggio get a couple of hits. He’s had a rough time of it lately.

And we were 6 for 17 with RISP.

Manoah went 7 innings, allowed 4 hits, no walks, and 1 earned, with 6 strikeouts. He got his 10th win of the seasons, before heading off to the All-Star game. It was in charge all the way.

Alek could have gone longer, he came out at 86 pitches, but up by 7 there was no reason to push it.

Trevor Richards pitched the eighth. Banda got the ninth. A much better spot for Banda than yesterday’s one-run game.

Jays of the Day: Teoscar (.234 WPA), Manoah (.198) and Chapman (.139).

No one got the other award. Bo had the low mark at -.073, but had a couple of nice plays on defense.

Tomorrow we have Max Castillo going (though maybe they will use an opener). Royals have Daniel Lynch (3-7, 4.92). It is a 3:00 Eastern start.

Maybe we could have a couple of three-run homers tomorrow too?