(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
  Blue Jays cut Royals lead in half in ALCS
Nederlands
 TORONTO, Ontario (Canada) -
The Toronto Blue Jays won 11-8 in Game 3 of the best-of-seven American League Championship Series on Monday-evening (October 19) against the Kansas City Royals.
Trailing 1-0, Toronto scored three runs in the second inning, then rallied for six runs in the third at bat.
However, Toronto was outhit by the Royals 15-11, but had three big homeruns.
With the win by Toronto, Kansas City now leads the series, 2-1.
Game Four will be played on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, the best-of-seven National League Championship Series continues in Chicago.
There, the Chicago Cubs host the New York Mets, who are leading the series, 2-0.
Starting pitchers tonight were righthander Marcus Stroman for the Blue Jays and righthander Johnny Cueto for the Royals.
24-year old Marcus Stroman was 4-0 this season, appearing in only four games after having recovered from an injury he sustained during Spring Training.
His only start against the Royals was on May 31 last year when he threw six innings and was the winning pitcher.
In this postseason, Stroman started two games and had a no-decision in both games.
He started Game 1 and Game 5 for the Blue Jays in the ALDS against the Texas Rangers.
...Pat Venditte pitching for Team Italy in the final of the...
...European Championship 2014 against the Netherlands...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
29-year old Johnny Cueto was 11-13 this season with a 3.44 ERA.
He is 2-0 in his career against the Royals.
Cueto started two earlier games during this postseason.
He started in Game 2 and Game 5 during the ALDS against the Houston Astros.
He was the winner in the fifth game, but had a no-decision in the other.
Through the years, the Royals and Blue Jays have proven to be very up to each other.
Overall, Toronto has won 197 games vs. the Royals, who won 191 against the Canadian squad.
This season, the Blue Jays won four games, the Royals five.
Overall at home in Toronto, the Blue Jays are 68-51 against the Royals.
Earlier today, the Blue Jays announced that it had claimed ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte off waivers from the Oakland Athletics.
This season, the 30-year old Venditte made his Major League-debut, throwing in relief in 26 games.
In those games, he switched for throwing righthanded to lefthanded and vice versa.
Venditte is not eligible to pitch for the Blue Jays during the current postseason.
Venditte played professionally since 2008 in the organization of the New York Yankees, then joined the A's this season.
Last year, Venditte was a member of the pitching staff of the National Team of Italy at the European Championship in the Czech Republic, which was won by the Netherlands.
He appeared in five games as reliever and was 1-0, earning the win against Spain.
In the final against Team Netherlands, he pitched the final inning, giving up one hit and one run, while striking out two.
When he took over in the eighth inning, Venditte was greeted with a lead-off homerun by Curt Smith.
The Dutch won the final, 6-3.
The Royals struck early, scoring a run in the first inning off of Marcus Stroman
Alcides Escobar led off with a triple into rightfield where José Bautista attempted to catch the ball, but didn't succeed.
Moments later, Escobar scored on a grounder by Ben Zobrist.
The inning then ended with two nice defensive plays by the Blue Jays.
First, centerfielder Kevin Pillar made a great catch on a drive by Lorenzo Cain.
The inning ended when second baseman Ryan Goins made a nice play on a grounder by Eric Hosmer.
In the bottom of the second inning, the Blue Jays erased the early deficit.
With one out, Troy Tulowitzki singled off of Johnny Cueto, who then hit next batter Russell Martin with a pitch.
The latter was forced out on a grounder by Kevin Pillar, but that also led to runners on first and third base.
Pillar then stole second base and Ryan Goins followed with a single that brought in both runners and gave Toronto a 2-1 lead.
Cueto then walked Ben Revere and gave up another runscoring single to Josh Donaldson that made it 3-1.
The Royals got a run back in a productive third inning off of Stroman.
With one out, Ben Zobrist doubled, then Lorenzo Cain singled up the middle.
Short stop Troy Tulowitzki made a great stop of Cain's, preventing a run.
With his basehit, Cain extended his hitting streak to 12 games in postseason.
And with that, he broke the club-record set by Amos Otis.
Zobrist then scored on a force play-grounder by Eric Hosmer.
But in the bottom of the third inning, Toronto took more distance off of Cueto.
The Dominican gave up a lead-off single to Edwin Encarnacion, then walked Chris Colabello.
Troy Tulowitzki followed with a 3-run homerun into deep centerfield.
And the inning wasn't over yet, as Cueto then walked Russell Martin, followed by a double by Kevin Pillar.
Martin scored all the way from first base to make it a 7-2 score and that marked the end for Cueto.
Kris Medlen took over the pitching, but there still were no outs.
Medlen retired the next two batters, but then it was Josh Donaldson, who drove the ball into leftfield for a 2-run homerun that lifted the lead to 9-2.
Medlen then struckout José Bautista to end the inning in which the Blue Jays rallied for six runs!
In the top of the fifth inning, the Royals did something back.
Alcides Escobar led off with a single and Ben Zobrist followed with a double.
Lorenzo Cain then lined out to rightfield, which kept Escobar on third base, but he scored moments later on a wild pitch.
With one out, Kendrys Morales walked, then Mike Moustakas delivered a runscoring single to make it 9-4 score.
But the Blue Jays immediately got one of these runs back in its fifth at bat when Ryan Goins homered with two outs.
In the top of the seventh, with one out, Eric Hosmer singled off of Stroman, who then was relieved by Aaron Sanchez.
He retired the next two batters.
In the bottom of the seventh, Kris Medlen retired the side and struckout two to raise his total to six, since coming on in relief in the second inning.
One of those strikeouts was for Troy Tulowitzki, who argued and was ejected by Home Plate Umpire John Hirschbeck.
In the bottom of the eighth, the Blue Jays added another run off of new pitcher Franklin Morales.
With one out, Ben Revere singled and Josh Donaldson walked, then José Bautista celebrated his 35th birthday with a runscoring single to make it an 11-4 score.
In the top of the ninth, the Royals brought the suspense back into the game off of new pitcher Liam Hendriks.
First, Alcides Escobar led off wtih a single and was 4-for-5 in the game.
Hereafter, Ben Zobrist doubled down the rightfield-line.
Escobar then scored for the Royals on a sacrifice fly by Lorenzo Cain and Zobrist scored the next run on a single by Eric Hosmer to narrow the deficit to 11-6.
That brought in closer Robert Osuna, who appeared to not necessary in this game due to the big lead.
Before this outing, the 20-year old rookie had retired all 17 batters he faced so far in this postseason.
With that, he became only the second pitcher in history to retire that many batters in a row while playing in his first Major League-season and thus first postseason.
The only other pitcher to do the same was Dickie Kerr, who accomplished the feat in 1919 while pitching for the Chicago White Sox.
With Hosmer on first base, Osuna's streak ended when Kendrys Morales drove the ball into deep right-centerfield for a 2-run homerun that made it an 11-8 score!
But hereafter, Osuna retired tne next two batters to end the game.
(October 19)
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