KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Mike Matheny spent about 20 minutes in the dugout before his Kansas City Royals took the field against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday and tried to put what has been a miserable 20-game stretch into perspective.
“There’s some things we can get better at,” Matheny said of the 5-15 rut, “and it’s a long list.”
They took care of a couple of them in their series finale against Toronto.
Kansas City finally managed to get into hitter’s counts throughout the game, knocking out Blue Jays starter Yusei Kikuchi before the end of the first inning, and rolled the rest of the way to an 8-4 victory that ended a three-game losing streak.
MJ Melendez and Emmanuel Rivera drove in two runs apiece. Carlos Santana went 4 for 4 and reached base five times during his eighth career four-hit game. And lumbering catcher Salvador Perez had his first triple in five years.
“I mean, it’s helpful when you start talking about hitter’s counts instead of pitcher’s counts,” Matheny said afterward. “We have been on the other side of that, where you have to go to the bullpen early and have to kind of navigate things.”
Brady Singer allowed home runs to Raimel Tapia and Zack Collins but only allowed one other run in five tough innings. He improved to 3-1 in his five starts while the rest of the Kansas City rotation is 3-25 in 50 combined starts.
“I felt like I battled,” Singer said. “Gave the team a chance to win.”
Kikuchi retired only two batters while walking four and serving up two hits that cost him three first-inning runs — two more than Kansas City scored in its last four games against the Blue Jays, including a pair of shutouts to start the series.
Toronto briefly tied the game 3-all before Trevor Richards (2-1) allowed…
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