Kansas City Royals, Greinke get knocked around in an 8-1 loss to the Blue Jays

The excitement and enthusiasm of the previous night didn’t simply fade away for the Kansas City Royals, but they were definitely brought back down to Earth a little bit by a motivated Toronto Blue Jays ballclub and one of baseball’s hottest pitchers on Friday night.

Royals veteran pitcher Zack Greinke, who won a Cy Young Award when many of his current teammates were still playing Little League, couldn’t duplicate the scoreless outing he put together in his previous start.

Greinke allowed four runs, three earned, on eight hits in four innings. Greinke gave up a home run and struck out three in the 8-1 loss to the Blue Jays in front of an announced 26,422 in the second game of a four-game series at the Rogers Centre.

The Royals (36-54) had won back-to-back games and five of six before the loss. The series between the clubs is now even at one game apiece.

Blue Jays pitcher Alek Manoah (10-4) allowed one run on four hits and struck out six in seven innings.

“He’s got good stuff,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Manoah. “He was using the fastball to both sides. The slider was — he’s got a different slider. It just has different metrics to it, has a different break. You could tell the guys were having a bit of trouble with it. Especially the guys who hadn’t seen him before, which was most of them. He really capitalized with that pitch today.”

Second baseman Nicky Lopez (1 for 4) drove in the lone run for the Royals with a fifth-inning RBI single that drove in in Ryan O’Hearn (hit by pitch).

Rookie first baseman Nick Pratto notched his first major-league hit. Pratto went 2 for 4 and was the only one of the recent additions to the roster to get a hit off of Manoah.

“Any first go-round, it’s an adjustment period when you get to the big leagues,” Lopez said. “I’ve said this before. … You can’t do anything in the minor leagues to prepare you for the big leagues until you actually witness the big leagues. (Manoah) is obviously an All-Star. He’s a really good pitcher. His stuff was on today.”

The Royals trailed 4-0 entering the fifth. O’Hearn reached on a hit by pitch to start the inning, and Pratto lined a single to center field for his first hit. O’Hearn advanced to second base.

After Nate Eaton’s groundout advanced the runners to second and third, Lopez singled on the ground through the middle into center field to score O’Hearn.

“Obviously this is only my second game here, but I like how we conducted our a-bats today as a whole,” Pratto said. “There were some unlucky balls. You change a few things, change a few pitches of the course of the game, both ways, and I think it could be a lot different.”

Pratto’s first hit came on an 0-1 fastball after he’d fouled off a changeup. He said the ball from that hit will go to his father, who was in attendance both Thursday and Friday night.

“Exactly how I thought it would be,” Pratto said of the feeling. “It was awesome. It was just good that I could produce for the team today. Let’s see how we go from here.”

He added a double in the ninth inning off left-hander Anthony Banda that one-hopped to the wall in right field.

Blue Jays finally get to Greinke

Greinke (3-6) hadn’t started in the Rogers Centre since 2019, when he was a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Greinke hadn’t lost a game to the Blue Jays since June 5, 2009. That 13-year run of dominance came to an end.

“Location was a little off, decent some of it, and then just made a couple more mistakes than normal,” Greinke said of his outing. “I feel like they had good at-bats. I feel like I would’ve done a little better, but I didn’t quite get it done today.”

The Blue Jays (48-43) put the leadoff batter on base in each of Greinke’s four innings via a walk and three hits. He kept that runner from scoring in the first, but he gave up a run in the second on a Raimel Tapia RBI single, the third hit of the inning.

“That was a big problem,” Greinke said of having the leadoff man on each inning. “I was trying to get the fastball going because it was pretty good today, but they kept getting on base right away. Then I tried to fastball more, but it just was tough to do.”

In the third inning, Greinke gave up a hit. Alejandro Kirk reached on a fielding error by shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and then a one-out cutter over the heart of the plate to Teoscar Hernandez that ended up getting swatted over the center field wall for a three-run home run.

Greinke gave up three hits in the fourth, including an infield single, but he kept the Blue Jays off the board with the help of a double play turned by third baseman Emmanuel Rivera and Lopez at second base.

“I thought at times he made some pretty good pitches that were getting hit, that was frustrating for him,” Matheny said. “Probably not the real good feel for the changeup, but everything else was pretty good. You hold down a good offense for a little while, like we did yesterday, and they’re going to get their hits. They just put them together in a big way.

“The one slider with the home run, that stung a little bit. But overall, I thought he did a nice job of trying to grind through and find something that was working.”

The Royals recalled pitcher Carlos Hernández from Triple-A prior to the game. He came out of the bullpen and made his first appearance in the majors since May 19.

Hernández, who has been stretched out as a starter, pitched the final four innings and kept the Royals from having to go to any of their relievers. He allowed four runs on eight hits, including a home run.

Prior to the game, the Royals activated reliever Josh Staumont from the injured list to bolster their bullpen. Left-hander Angel Zerpa, Thursday night’s starter, was sent back down to Double-A.