Barney drives in three to beat Royals
Stroman sets career high for victories in a season delivering powerful seven-inning show
TORONTO — Darwin Barney hit a two-run homer and Marcus Stroman turned in a strong seven-inning performance as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Kansas City Royals 5-2 on Tuesday night.
Ryan Goins led off the sixth inning with a single before Barney turned on an 0-2 pitch from Ian Kennedy for his fifth homer of the year.
Russell Martin drove in a pair of runs and scored in Toronto’s three-run seventh inning to help the Blue Jays (7180) take the opener of the three-game series. Roberto Osuna worked the ninth for his 37th save.
Stroman (12-8) set a career high for victories in a season. He allowed four hits, one earned run and two walks while striking out five.
Royals starter Ian Kennedy (4-12) allowed just one hit — a Justin Smoak double — over the first five innings.
Goins squeaked a ball through the infield in the sixth and the Barney blast ended the right-hander’s night. Kennedy allowed three hits, two earned runs and struck out a pair.
Stroman, meanwhile, gave up a single to Whit Merrifield in the first inning and a double to Mike Moustakas in the second before finding his groove.
The Royals (73-77) got on the board in the seventh inning after Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez hit back-toback singles to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Centre-fielder Kevin Pillar made a nice sliding catch on a Mike Moustakas liner but it was enough to bring Hosmer home on the sacrifice fly.
Toronto answered in the bottom half as Martin’s gapper scored pinch-runner Rob Refsnyder and Kevin Pillar. Barney drove in his third run of the night with a single that scored Martin.
Alex Gordon hit a solo shot off Toronto reliever Ryan Tepera in the eighth inning. His eighth homer of the season came on a 3-2 pitch. Toronto outhit Kansas City 8-6. Gordon’s homer set a new MLB record. It was the 5,694th home run of 2017, breaking the season record set in 2000 at the height of the Steroids Era.
It was the 17th of the night and came just after Detroit’s Alex Presley tied the record when he connected at home against Oakland’s Daniel Gossett.
There were 5,610 homers last year, an average of 2.31 per game, and this year’s average of 2.53 entering Tuesday’s action projects to 6,139. That would be up 47 per cent from 4,186 in 2014.
Power subsided after the start of drug testing with penalties in 2004. The home run average dropped in 2014 to its lowest level since 1992, then started rising during the second half of the 2015 season.