The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals tonight 3-2 thanks to great pitching from Mark Buehrle and some timely hits.

The Blue Jays went up 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back.  Rookie Ryan Goins, in only his seven MLB game, reached first on a throwing error with one out in the first.  Edwin Encarnación then doubled, moving Goins to third.  Adam Lind then stepped up and hit a single scoring Goins and Encarnación.

In the 5th inning, Anthony Gose started the inning with a stand up triple, and then scored on a Ryan Goins single.  The single could easily have been called an error as the Royals’ third baseman Mike Moustakas appeared to bobble the ball.  However, it went down as an RBI single for Goins – his 11th hit in seven games and he has safely hit in each of his games.

In the 8th inning, Brett Cecil came in to pitch for the Blue Jays.  Alcides Escobar opened the inning with an infield base hit.  Alex Gordon then hit a single to centre field moving Escobar to third.  Emilio Bonifacio then hit a sacrifice bunt to score Escobar and move Gordon to third.  Replays suggest that Bonifacio was safe, so the Blue Jays got a break on the play.  Eric Hosmer then singled to left to score Gordon and make it a 3-2 ballgame.

Casey Janssen came into the ballgame in the 9th inning and gave up two singles before Goins made a great play at second and tossed the ball to first to end the ballgame.

Mark Buehrle improves to 11-7 on the season with the win after pitching seven quality innings giving up four hits and no runs while striking out five and walking one.  This was Buehrle’s 23rd career win over the Royals, and moved his season ERA to 3.94, the lowest it has been since the 4th inning of his first start back in April.

The Royals starter, Ervin Santana, fell to 8-8 while giving up four hits and three runs (two earned), while striking out six and walking two.

Casey Janssen picked up his 25th save in 27 opportunities after not working since Monday August 26th.

Attendance was 21,031 – a modest crowd for the Blue Jays this year.  The game lasted 2 hours and 24 minutes thanks to fast pitching by the starters.