Kansas City Royals get blanked by Alek Manoah and the Blue Jays in Toronto

Unfortunately for the Kansas City Royals hitters, Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Alek Manoah came off the injured list and delivered one of the best starts, if not the best, of his young career.

The Royals had just three men reach base in seven innings against Manoah and their offense never really got started Saturday in a 4-0 loss to the Blue Jays in front of an announced 13,953 in the second game of their three-game series at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. The Royals were shut out for the sixth time this season.

“He had good, heavy sink, established the inside of the plate and then spun the ball really well,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Manoah. “He was speeding us up, slowing us down. He executed when we needed to. We just couldn’t get anything going, didn’t get anybody to second base until the eighth inning, and that was with two outs. We just had trouble getting any kind of momentum at all.”

The loss snapped a streak of three consecutive series wins for the Royals (45-58). They’ll try to avoid a series sweep with right-hander Brad Keller set to start on Sunday.

The loss kept the Royals from registering their first winning month since April. They finished July 12-12.

Royals left-hander Mike Minor (8-9) allowed four runs, five hits and one walk in seven innings Saturday. He struck out six. Two of the hits he allowed were homers by Blue Jays leadoff hitter George Springer, which accounted for three runs.

The Royals’ Whit Merrifield extended his hitting streak to 11 games. Ryan O’Hearn and Hunter Dozier also had hits for KC. They struggled their first time facing Manoah, who made just his 10th major-league appearance, and his unorthodox delivery.

“The ball just kind of pops out,” Merrifield said. “It’s tough to get your timing down. He’s got that big sweeping slider that you’ve got to stay honest on. So it helps that sinker. That sinker plays up a little bit when you’ve got to respect that slider as much as you do. Good pitcher, good stuff. Our first time seeing him we weren’t able to do enough, really to do anything.”

Springer belted a first-pitch fastball over the heart of the plate into the left-field stands for a solo homer on the first pitch Minor threw in the game. Then in the third inning, Springer swatted a 2-1 fastball over the right-center-field wall for a two-run homer.

“I thought his stuff looked great, it was one of the better fastballs that he has had,” Matheny said. “It’s a shame getting ambushed there on that first pitch. This is an aggressive team, and we know they do that. Then later in the game, fastball count 2-1, that got up and away. One guy just really put a hurting on us today.”

Springer saw Minor plenty in recent years when both were in the AL West, Springer on the Houston Astros and Minor with the Texas Rangers and then Oakland Athletics.

Springer entered the day having gone 9 for 26 (.346) with one homer, two doubles, seven walks and seven strikeouts against Minor.

He’d had 35 plate appearances against Minor, but that also gave Minor an ample scouting report against Springer.

The Blue Jays’ marquee free-agent signing this winter, Springer simply executed better.

“I had a good game plan, knew he was swinging the first pitch of the game,” Minor said. “Instead of throwing one middle away, I didn’t even look at the video. He knows that I particularly usually go in on him with fastballs and sliders in the past. Maybe he was just geared up for a fastball.

“Later in the game, I felt like I was throwing arm-side better than in. I felt like I could probably sneak one by him or get one by, and if he did hit it, he wouldn’t hit it with power. He did a good job of hitting it to right-center.”

The first pitch from Minor finished more over the middle third than Minor wanted, and the second home-run pitch was on the outside corner.

Between those two homers, Minor retired seven consecutive batters. The first hitter to reach base was the hitter directly before Springer, Alejandro Kirk, on a single on the ground to left field.

The score remained 3-0 until the sixth when Minor gave up an infield single on a grounder to third base by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed by an RBI triple by Marcus Semien on a ball hit to center field. Royals center fielder Michael A. Taylor seemed to get either a bad read or bad jump and missed Semien’s ball by several feet and the drive got past Taylor and to the wall.

Minor retired the next three batters and stranded Semien on third, but the Blue Jays held a 4-0 advantage going into the final three innings. The Royals had just one hit to that point in the game.

“I was happy with my performance,” Minor said. “I felt like Spring might have had the only two hard-hit balls that I can remember. There might have been some decent ones hit on the ground. … That’s the frustrating part about it, I go seven innings but I give up seven runs. Their guy did a really good job keeping us off the board.”

The Royals went from the second batter of the second inning to the second batter of the seventh without a base runner against Manoah. They didn’t put a runner in scoring position, and they drew just one walk as Manoah threw 59 of his 89 pitches (66 percent) for strikes.

The Royals didn’t have two men on base in the same inning until the eighth inning after Manoah had turned the game over to the bullpen.