Eight in a row, and a gap that will not close
Kansas City go for a ninth straight win on Tuesday night at Rogers Centre. They arrive off a 7-0 homestand that ended Sunday with an 11-7 win over Detroit, and off their longest winning run since they took eight in a row between May 17 and May 25, 2024.
The margin tells the story better than the streak does. Over those eight games the Royals have outscored opponents 50-27, a shade over six runs scored a night against fewer than three and a half conceded. This is not a team scraping through one-run finishes.
What it has not done is move them much. After Sunday, Kansas City sat 11 games back in the American League Central and seven and a half out of the third wild card, with 30 games left on the schedule.
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A stolen base nobody contested
Manager Matt Quatraro is not selling a miracle. “You’re going to be judged on the whole body of work, right? And the record at the beginning was not great, but there’s 30 games left,” he said. “It is try to win the next game, and that’s what we did Sunday.”
The oddest detail of the homestand belonged to Salvador Perez, who took second base uncontested in the second inning on Sunday. It was the seventh stolen base of his career and his first since July 21, 2021. “This game is too crazy,” Perez said. “I’ve seen a lot of things in this game. You need to prepare day by day, one day at a time.”
Seth Lugo (5-7, 4.71) opens the series and a six-game road trip. He has faced Toronto seven times in his career, three of them starts, and come out 3-1 with a 2.52 ERA.
Toronto’s problem is situational
Max Scherzer takes the ball for the Blue Jays at 1-6 with a 7.40 ERA this year, though he owns a 14-6 record and a 3.57 ERA across 25 career starts against Kansas City. Toronto sit a game and a half out of the third wild card after a 3-3 road trip that ended with an 8-3 defeat to the Yankees, who took the season series 7-6.
They went 6-for-41 with runners in scoring position across those three games in the Bronx, including 1-for-14 in the opener. The club entered Monday 24th in the majors at .239 in those spots. “We need to be a little bit better in certain situations,” John Schneider said. Toronto have still won 18 of their last 30, and the two clubs meet again in Kansas City from Sept. 4.
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