Toronto’s big bats woke up as the Blue Jays belted three home runs in an 11-8 victory over Kansas City to claw back a game in their Major League Baseball playoff series.
Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson and Ryan Goins homered for Toronto, who led the major leagues with 232 home runs in the regular season but didn’t hit a homer in dropping the first two games of the best-of-seven American League Championship Series in Kansas City.
With the win they trimmed the deficit to 2-1 and will try to pull level when they host game four on Tuesday.
The winner of the series will face the National League champion, either the Chicago Cubs or New York Mets, in the World Series starting on October 27.
“We desperately needed that break-out,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “You look at how the game finished up, those runs really came in handy. It wasn’t an easy game, even though we had a big lead.”
Shortstop Tulowitzki keyed Toronto’s six-run third inning with a three-run homer off Royals starting pitcher Johnny Cueto, who didn’t retire a batter in the inning.
Tulowitzki’s blast to centerfield was followed by a run-scoring double by Kevin Pillar off Cueto, who departed having given up eight runs on six hits in two-plus innings.
He was replaced by Kris Medlen, who surrendered a two-run homer to Donaldson as Toronto emerged from the third with a 9-2 lead.
“It was only a matter of time before we broke out, and guys broke out in a big way today,” said Toronto starting pitcher Marcus Stroman, who allowed four runs, 11 hits and one walk in 6 1/3 innings and picked up the win.
The Royals scored twice in the fifth to trim the lead to 9-4 before Goins homered with two outs in the bottom of the fifth to give Toronto a 10-4 lead.
Toronto right fielder Jose Bautista celebrated his 35th birthday by driving in a run with a single in the eighth to give the hosts an 11-4 cushion — but not before they saw Tulowitzki ejected warming up for the eighth for arguing with plate umpire John Hirschbeck over an earlier called strike.
“Well, I think obviously I didn’t agree with the called third strike and some other pitches during the game,” Tulowitzki said. “I’m walking out and he’s looking right at me the whole time, and I just said, ‘Hey, that’s not a strike.’
“I didn’t feel what I did — granted, emotions are high — I didn’t think I should be ejected in that instance right there.”
– Royals rally falls short –
The Royals, past masters at unlikely post-season comebacks, sent a chill through the crowd when they scored four runs in the top of the ninth — including a two-run homer by Kendrys Morales off closing pitcher Roberto Osuna. Osuna came in after reliever Liam Hendriks allowed three hits, including a run-scoring single by Eric Hosmer.
Royals manager Ned Yost said he couldn’t fault his offense.
“They had some good at-bats,” he said. “We were down big there going into the ninth inning but they didn’t quit. They put a four-run on the spot.
“Eight runs should be enough to win a ballgame, but tonight it wasn’t.”