The Toronto Blue Jays are getting hot at the right time — and taking advantage of the struggling Kansas City Royals in the process.
Aiming for a season-high fifth straight victory, the visiting Blue Jays will look to complete a three-game series sweep of the Royals on Sunday.
Toronto (72-71) lost two of three to Kansas City (63-80) from Aug. 25-27, but is 7-1 since then. After winning 9-2 over the Royals on Friday, the Blue Jays got four hits from Kazuma Okamoto, including a tie-breaking RBI single in the seventh inning, for a 4-3 victory on Saturday.
The Blue Jays are above .500 for the first time since 4-3 on April 3 and will enter play Sunday tied for the final American League wild-card spot.
“We’re a really good baseball team,” infielder Ernie Clement told the Blue Jays’ official website.
“It was only a matter of time before things started clicking and we started playing our game.”
Toronto now will try to sweep its second road series of the season. They last accomplished the feat June 16-18 at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox.
“It’s nice to win,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “It’s nice to get on a little bit of a roll.
“It’s nice to be in this position, for sure.”
Okamoto is 7-for-20 with three extra-base hits and four RBIs in his past five games. Meanwhile, teammate Nathan Lukes is 8-for-19 with four RBIs in the past four contests.
Right-hander Spencer Arrighetti (7-8, 4.82 ERA) is the scheduled starter.
He has made three appearances (one start) for Toronto since he was acquired from the Houston Astros at the trade deadline. Arrighetti’s most recent start came Aug. 27 against the Royals, when he yielded four runs – three earned – and five hits, with two walks, over four innings of Toronto’s 13-2 loss.
Arrighetti yielded a two-run homer and one other hit over 3 2/3 innings as the Blue Jays’ third pitcher of the game at Cleveland on Tuesday.
“You need Spencer Arrighetti to go quite a bit,” Schneider said.
With the Blue Jays, Arrighetti has an 0-3 record with a 6.55 ERA.
Kansas City stars Bobby Witt Jr., Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen are a combined 8-for-16 against Arrighetti.
Caglianone is questionable for the game. He left Saturday’s game in the top of the third inning with elbow soreness.
“We’ll get it checked out (Sunday) morning,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said of Caglianone, the AL Player of the Month for August, when he batted .411 with six homers and 26 RBIs.
Witt had three hits against the Blue Jays last week, but he’s batting .194 in eight games since for Kansas City, who are 1-5 after winning 12 of the previous 13.
Scheduled Royals starter Randy Dobnak (2-3, 2.65) will look to rebound after he allowed a season-high six runs and seven hits, including two homers, over six innings of a 6-3 loss to Miami on Tuesday.
That performance came after the right-hander gave up a three-run homer to Lukes, and five other hits, over six innings of Kansas City’s 3-0 loss at Toronto on Aug. 26.
–Field Level Media
