TORONTO _ A quiet offense can magnify every facet of a baseball game, from a tight strike zone in the early moments of the evening, to the bullpen tactics used in the heat of the seventh inning.
On Monday night at Rogers Centre, as the Royals returned to Canada for the first time since last October, the microscope turned its power toward Royals manager Ned Yost and the decisions made in the pivotal moments.
Yost rode with starting pitcher Edinson Volquez in the seventh inning as the Toronto Blue Jays lineup faced him for a third time. The result was a five-run collapse in a 6-2 loss in the opening game of an American League Championship Series rematch.
"You cannot make a lot of mistakes with them," Volquez said. "They make you pay for it. I did in the seventh inning."
The inning had begun with the Royals trailing 1-0. Kendrys Morales erased the deficit with his 15th homer of the season, a solo homer off Toronto starter Aaron Sanchez.
Inside the dugout, Volquez sat quietly, poised to take the mound again in the seventh with the score at 1-1. Inside the Royals' bullpen, the phone remained quiet.
And then this: Volquez opened the inning by loading the bases, issuing a walk, allowing a single and hitting Toronto center fielder Kevin Pillar on an inside sinker. Reliever Luke Hochevar compounded the problems, issuing a bases-loaded walk before the Blue Jays seized control with two singles.
The decision to let Volquez pitch the seventh was hardly egregious. After allowing a run in the first inning, he had settled into a groove and thrown five scoreless innings. He had finished the sixth by rolling through the top of the Blue Jays lineup, striking out No. 3 hitter Edwin Encarnacion and cleanup man Michael Saunders. But with a silent offense offering no margin for error, the decision still backfired. In the span of one inning, the percentages played out.
Entering Monday night, opponents had hit just .252 against Volquez during their first two trips through the batting order. During the third time through, the number jumps to .316. In this instance, Volquez was undone again in the seventh.
"There's absolutely no thought about taking him out after six," Yost said. "He had great action on his fastball _ good hard, biting action. (He had) good curveballs, good changeups. He was at 85 pitches."
Volquez was actually at 88 pitches, but the sentiment remained the same. He felt strong entering the seventh inning, he said. He had only allowed one run in the first inning, after being squeezed on balls and strikes and failing to get help from his defense on a tailor-made double-play ball.
Volquez was dueling with Toronto's Sanchez, who was filling up the zone with 95 mph fastballs. He was ready to go back on the attack in the seventh.
"I walked the first guy," Volquez said, summing up the inning in simple terms. "Any time you walk the first guy in any inning, you got 80 percent you're going to get in trouble."
When Volquez walked the first batter of the inning, Yost let him face another batter. When that batter reached on a single, Yost lengthened the rope. Inside the dugout, he hoped Volquez's sinker would induce a double-play ball. Instead, it found the right elbow of Pillar and loaded the bases.
"We were going for the double play right there; Eddie's ball was still diving good," Yost said. "Eddie tried to go in with a sinker and it was just too far in."
The thing about microscopes, of course, is that they are not always pointed at the right subject. On Monday night, the seventh inning loomed large. But it was perhaps not as critical as an offense that could not do much against Sanchez.
Sanchez had not lost in 12 starts since April 22. In the span, he had pieced together a 3.00 ERA. On Monday, he displayed why.
"He attacked up with a lot of fastballs to hit," left fielder Alex Gordon said. "We just missed them. Give him credit. H was jumping on us a little bit. And then later in the game, he started mixing it up well and keeping us off balance."
The Royals' only offense came on a solo homer from Morales in the top of the seventh and a solo shot from Eric Hosmer in the ninth.
Morales had entered Monday batting .443 (35 for 79) with eight homers in his last 22 games. He had clubbed four homers in last four games, and as he stood at the plate in the seventh, he had just missed another one on a line shot down the right field line. Moments later, he took advantage of another chance, crushing a homer to right-center.
The Blue Jays had manufactured a run in the first inning after Volquez opened the game by walking the first two batters. He responded by tossing five scoreless innings before the decisive seventh.
For six innings, the Royals had resembled the team that defeated the Blue Jays in six games last October, clinching a second straight American League pennant. Volquez was stingy; the defense was mostly solid.
In the fourth inning, Gordon had notched the defensive play of the night _ and perhaps one of the best this season _ throwing out Edwin Encarnacion at the plate with a cannon throw from deep left field.
When the ball was hit, it appeared as if there would be no play at the plate. But Gordon came up firing, unleashing a throw that traveled 250 feet and was clocked at 92 mph, according to MLB's Statcast technology.
"You kind of know the situation," Gordon said. "It's a 1-0 game with the way Sanchez was pitching, you try to hold it down in terms of the score. You know Edwin isn't the fastest. I was playing in the gap, and Pillar hit it down the line."
By the end, the play did not matter. In the span of one inning, a close game got away.
"I settled down myself and made a lot of good pitches from the second to the sixth," Volquez said. "It wasn't good the seventh."
