Randy Dobnak surrendered three earned runs and fanned five batters as the Kansas City Royals had their nine-game win streak snapped on Wednesday.
The Kansas City Royals' impressive nine-game win streak unfortunately came to an end on Wednesday night when they suffered a 3-0 shutout loss at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Individually, right-hander Randy Dobnak took his second loss as a Royal since being acquired by the team in June via a trade with the Seattle Mariners in exchange for cash considerations.
Dobnak gave up six hits and three earned runs while fanning five batters through six innings of work, earning kudos from manager Matt Quatraro who noted the 31-year-old's effectiveness in attacking the strike zone and efficiency in generating soft contact.
"Another quality start, I thought he was attacking the zone," Quatraro said in a postgame interview with MLB.com. "The fourth inning there, he got behind those guys and that's when they got some guys on base, but the changeup to [Nathan] Lukes for the home run, other than that it was a clean game for him. He was trying to challenge him the whole time, but a couple of times getting behind like I said."
Although Vladimir Guerrero Jr. advanced all the way to third base during the first inning with an infield single, Dobnak prevented any damage as he forced a flyout from Alejandro Kirk and struck out a pair of hitters in Brett Bateman and George Springer.
He held on in the second as well despite allowing a double by Jesus Sánchez, retiring Kazuma Okamoto and Lukes while convincing Ernie Clement to bite on an 83-mph sweeper out of the zone.
Nonetheless, Lukes made Dobnak pay for a hanging changeup he threw in the fourth, launching a three-run homer to right center that surged the Blue Jays ahead.
Kansas City attempted a late rally in the eighth as Carter Jensen singled and advanced to third off another hit by Bobby Witt Jr. Nick Loftin would then initiate a final effort in the ninth with a double while also moving to third off an infield single by John Rave.
Still, Toronto reliever Louis Varland weathered through the storm to get Isaac Collins down swinging on a filthy changeup at the bottom of the zone and earn his 30th save of the season.
Even though the Royals fell to 59-75 overall, the club has shown a ton of resiliency this season with back-to-back sweeps over the Athletics and AL Central rival Detroit Tigers.
Furthermore, they lost three games earlier in the month to the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers within two runs.
As for Dobnak, he has now gone 2-2 on the season while compiling a solid 1.92 ERA and 1.37 WHIP for the Royals. He has also recorded 34 punchouts in 51.2 innings of action.
Kansas City will look to win the series tonight at 7:07 p.m. EDT when Noah Cameron takes the mound against Blue Jays right-hander Spencer Arrighetti.
