Major League Baseball: Kansas City Royals
TORONTO Six days ago Danny Duffy stood at his locker at Kauffman Stadium and shouldered the loss in a no-decision. It was his fault, he said, that the Royals hadnt won any of his starts to that point.
We could easily be 6-4, Duffy said. Thats a teller.
For the first time in this young, weather-beaten season, Duffy could not take any blame for a Royals loss.
On Tuesday night at Rogers Centre, in the second game of a doubleheader borne of ice-induced roof damage, Royals reliever Brian Flynn was dealt the L in the Blue Jays 5-4 walk-off victory in 10 innings.
Luke Maile had the game-winning hit, a single up the right side with the bases loaded and one out.
Combined with an 11-3 loss in the opener, the Royals (3-12) have lost seven games in a row.
Before the bullpen melted down for the second time in one day, Duffy pitched his first scoreless start since May 18 of last year. He struck out eight batters, issued three walks and permitted two hits in six innings. He threw 100 pitches in his longest outing of the season.
Duffy avoided the big inning that sidetracked each of his previous starts. When Duffy got close to allowing the Jays to burst through what had been a 2-0 lead in the third, he induced a ground ball double play up the middle to end a bases-loaded threat.
He retired six of the seven batters he faced before turning the game over to Justin Grimm for the seventh inning.
Duffy was dealt a no-decision for a second start in a row.
For the second time on Tuesday, the Royals bullpen relinquished a lead. Grimm loaded the bases with three consecutive walks to start the seventh and Rule 5 acquisition Brad Keller could not bail him out of trouble. The Blue Jays scored four times on three straight hits before Keller recorded the first out of the inning.
Rookie Tim Hill came in after him, and he recorded two outs and pitched a perfect eighth inning.
The seventh-inning disaster was the nightcaps mirror image of the sixth inning in Game 1.
That one started innocently enough with the Royals trailing 5-3. Cheslor Cuthbert overthrew to Lucas Duda. The ground ball ended up grazing the padding of some extended seating on the first-base side and skipping into the crowd. It allowed Kevin Pillar to reach first base, and eventually set up a three-run jack by Randal Grichuk.
But the inning didnt end there. With no outs recorded, Blaine Boyer gave up his second single of the inning. That base runner and the two others he allowed prior to Burch Smith entering the game with one out later scored with ease. Smith allowed a sacrifice fly ball to Yangervis Solarte, who clubbed a two-run homer into the left-field upper deck in the first inning, and served up a two-run double to Pillar, who was the 10th of 11 batters that appeared in the inning.
The events that transpired marked yet another meltdown for Boyer. Hes allowed more than three runs in four of his six appearances, with 18 runs (14 earned) overall. Batters are averaging .500 against him.
