Blue Jays 8, Royals 5
Adam Lind homered in Toronto's three-run first inning and Kyle Drabek overcame a bout of wildness to make the lead stand up as the Blue Jays defeated the host Kansas City Royals 8-5 Tuesday evening.
Drabek (4-4) battled through 5 1/3 innings in the sweltering Kansas City heat, allowing four runs on nine hits with three walks. He finished with four wild pitches to tie a franchise record shared by John Cerutti (1986), Edwin Hurtado (1995) and Al Leiter (1995).
Luis Perez tossed 2 2/3 scoreless innings in relief while Jon Rauch worked the ninth for his seventh save.
Rookie J.P. Arencibia added a two-run shot in the eighth inning for Toronto (31-30), which evened its road record at 16-16 for the season.
Jeff Francoeur had two hits and three RBIs while rookie Eric Hosmer finished 2-for-4 with two runs scored for the Royals (26-35).
After Yunel Escobar opened the scoring with a single, a stolen base and back-to-back Kansas City throwing errors, Lind extended the lead with a two-run rocket to the seats in right-center field off Kansas City starter Vin Mazzaro in the first.
It was the 10th home run of the year for Lind, who is hitting 5-for-14 with three homers and six RBIs since coming off the disabled list over the weekend.
Mazzaro (0-1) went five-plus innings, charged with six runs on eight hits in his first appearance since being demoted after allowing 14 runs in a game against Cleveland last month. Tuesday's performance actually lowered his ERA from 22.74 to 17.47.