Surging Blue Jays send Max Scherzer to mound vs. Royals

Ascending Blue Jays battle Royals, focus on better wild-card positioning

With three weeks remaining in the regular season, the American League still is taking applications for the third and final wild-card spot.

The Toronto Blue Jays (71-71) continue to assert themselves as a viable candidate heading into the second contest of a three-game set against the host Kansas City Royals (63-79) on Saturday night.

With a 9-2 win over Kansas City on Friday, the Blue Jays have won six of their last seven games and have pulled within a game of the Cleveland Guardians for the AL's last postseason spot. Toronto has 26 runs across its last three games.

"Our at-bats have definitely been better, and we've gotten some timely hitting," Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. "We got a lot of hits in the month of August as a team. We're doing the little things better. We're playing better defense. We're keeping games where they should be better than we did at the beginning of the year.

Max Scherzer (2-7, 6.16 ERA) turned back the clock in his last start. Now, the 42-year-old right-hander will search for consistency.

Scherzer threw seven scoreless innings and allowed just one hit on Sunday, striking out a season-high 10 batters and walking one in a 7-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners.

"We need these wins right now. To go out there and deliver and get a win feels great," Scherzer said. "We're in the thick of it. We're in the playoff hunt, and you've got to go in with the mentality of winning every single day. The pressure is on. You have to go and do something about it. I love these moments. We're in a fight, and we have to fight all the way until the end."

As much as Scherzer is focused on propelling the reigning AL champions to the postseason, his manager can appreciate what the future Hall of Famer is doing in the regular season. Scherzer surpassed Gaylord Perry for ninth place on the all-time MLB strikeout list with 3,535.

"It was a pretty remarkable performance with the 10 strikeouts, one hit, and then getting into ninth place all-time in strikeouts is pretty cool to see," Schneider said. "He was dialed in from the very beginning. It was vintage Max."

In 26 career starts against Kansas City, Scherzer is 14-7 with a 3.57 ERA. He faced the Royals on Aug. 25, throwing five innings of two-run, four-hit ball while walking five and striking out four in a 5-3 loss.

The Royals on Saturday will turn to right-hander Seth Lugo (6-8, 5.03 ERA), who is coming off one of the worst outings of his 388 career appearances. The 36-year-old allowed a career-high nine runs on nine hits across 3 2/3 innings, walking two and striking out two in an 11-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday.

"I think his stuff was good; he just wasn't on the plate enough early on," Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. "There were a lot of little moments that compounded to make it not a good outing."

In eight career appearances (four starts) against the Blue Jays, Lugo is 4-1 with a 2.40 ERA. He dueled Scherzer two starts ago and hurled five innings, allowing one run on six hits, striking out five and walking one in the 5-3 Kansas City win.

--Field Level Media