KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Steven Matz held the Kansas City Royals without a hit in the sixth inning, and Jonathan Davis and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. teamed up to give the Toronto Blue Jays a 5–1 win in their double-opener seven-inning opener. Saturday.
Matz (3-0) allowed a pair of walks from Nikki Lopez’s blooper before dropping one of the sixth. Matz struck out Andrew Benintendi twice and later only opened his second-innings innings for an otherwise effective performance.
Blue Jayce had to settle for a split. In the night time, the Royals started with four relief pitches after replacing veteran Ervin Santana, before a two-out, walk-off homer by Salvador Perez gave them a 3–2 victory.
He struck out two hits and two hits as a lefty matz, allowing five hits for Kans City, before allowing Rafael Dolis for the seventh inning, allowing Kans City to hit just five from five balls. Done.
Battling injuries throughout his six seasons with the Mets, Matz said, “It’s fun to get into the grooves early in the season, especially when you have that kind of lineup.” “It’s been good. I’m just trying to make each start, take a little bit from each start and get a little better each time. This is the goal going forward. “
In addition to a shock first, Mike Minor of the Royals matched the Matz pitch for the most pitches.
Minor (1-1) hit back-to-back singles by Guerrero and Randall Grichuk and Lourdes Gurrell Jr. scored two runs off the wall, two runs ahead. All of those runs remained as Davis tied his first homer of the year with a left-field foul pole to finish fifth and Guerrero tied his second homer of the series for sixth.
“I have some good defensive games behind me,” Minor said. “I felt the strike zone was a bit tight, so I wasn’t moving as many pitches as I was throwing. I was falling behind people. And then I hit home runs.”
Even if the Mets did not allow a hit all game, his sterling debut would not be an official no-hitter as teams or pitchers must play at least nine innings to qualify. The decision to shorten doubleheader games to seven innings for the 2021 season means the Mets and Blue Jays will need at least two extra innings to count it.
Dave Stebb, the only no-hitter in Blue Jays history, has a 3–0 win over the Indians on 2–0, 1990.
“We got off to a good start today. The Mets threw the ball well, ”Royals manager Mike Matheny said. He said, “They had a late movement – you can tell people were not seeing a late movement. Actually baring, using the back door.”
The Blue Jays were certainly happy for the Mets’ outstanding performance following Friday’s rain. His initial rotation has been cut due to injuries of just three weeks into the season, including a 7-5 loss to Kansas City on Thursday night.
At nighttime, the Blue Jays sent Tommy Milone to the mound against Erwin Santana of the Royals.
The well-traveled Santana had not won a major league mound with the White Sox since April 24, 2019. Santana spent the 2013 season with the Royals and debuted for him for the first time in 2,761 days.
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