TORONTO -- For a second consecutive start, Johnny Cueto heard the crowd chant his name.
This time, it wasn’t flattering.
In what has started to become a pattern, the Kansas City Royals’ starter-for-hire struggled in a postseason game on the road, and the Toronto Blue Jays got back into the American League Championship Series with an 11-8 victory.
When Kris Medlen took over on the mound for the Royals in the third inning, the electric crowd in Toronto began a “We want Johnny” chant. It was a far cry from the “Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!” chant the appreciative crowd in Kansas City showered him with on Wednesday when he dominated in Game 5 of the division series.
“He couldn't command the ball down,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He was up all night long. Just really struggled with his command. They got his pitch count up and he just couldn't make an adjustment.”
Monday was the third time in Cueto’s career that he has pitched in a playoff game away from his home park, and there isn’t a single one of those outings he would like to remember.
In 2012 for the Cincinnati Reds, he lasted just one batter and eight pitches before he had to leave with an oblique injury. It was the shortest outing for a starter in playoff history.
In 2013, again with the Reds, Cueto had his health but little else. He gave up four runs on eight hits over 3⅓ innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Reds were eliminated from the postseason.
On Monday, his gruesome line of eight runs on six hits with four walks over two-plus innings gave him another record. It was the first time in playoff history a pitcher allowed both eight earned runs and 11 baserunners in two or fewer innings pitched.
“It’s a tough environment, but it’s baseball,” Cueto said. “I have to make adjustments and I wasn’t able to make adjustments. The mound was a little high and different from the bullpen mound and I just couldn’t make adjustments. No excuses.”
Cueto also mentioned the tight strike zone from plate umpire John Hirschbeck, but repeated his “no excuses” mantra. Somebody asked again about his issue with the bullpen mound.
“It’s a different mound,” he said. “Mounds in the bullpen are a little flat and mounds [in a game] are a little high, but that’s not an excuse. That’s not what I am hanging my game on. They just beat me today. This is not an excuse. I’m just going to move forward.”
On that short bullpen mound warming up, Cueto never would have predicted what was in store.
“I felt great in the bullpen, my pitches were down and I felt great,” he said. “When I got into the game, God only knows.”
The shame of it all is that the Royals' offense kept right on hitting, even after they were in a 9-2 hole and then trailed 10-4. A four-run ninth inning, highlighted by a two-run home run from Kendrys Morales, made it interesting, but there would be no rally this time.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating, but at the same time it’s just one game,” said first baseman Eric Hosmer, who drove in two runs and now has 20 RBIs in his postseason career, trailing only George Brett’s 23 in team history.
“We’re still up in the series 2-1 and the way we’re swinging the bats on offense, we like where we’re at. We know our pitchers aren’t going to have another outing, another game like they did today. We’re still confident. We just have to bounce back [Tuesday]; quick turnaround and get that third win.”
Cueto is certain he will get another chance in these playoffs. And if he were to pitch again in this series, it would happen in a potential Game 7, the kind of game the Royals acquired him for in a late-July trade. The good news for the Royals is that Game 7 would be in Kansas City.
“His next start, he's going to be able to work on some things on the side and I guarantee you, if he makes another start in this series, he'll be good,” Yost said.
Cueto definitely doesn’t lack confidence, but he did offer a sheepish grin when Blue Jays fans cheered him during his long walk back to the dugout when he was removed from the game in the third inning. Some interpreted his smile as indifference.
“That’s just part of my DNA,” Cueto said, explaining that it wasn’t a smile of joy. “That’s what comes out, but there wasn’t any laughing about it.”
Even if Yost has every confidence that Cueto can dominate the next time he is called upon to pitch, his performances have been so erratic in a Royals uniform that nobody can really know what to expect. Perhaps nothing is more erratic, though, than retiring 19 consecutive batters in one start and then giving up eight runs in a stretch of 17 batters the next.
“I was trying to make adjustments to get the ball down and I couldn’t make the adjustments,” Cueto said. “It’s just part of the game and I will be ready for the seventh game. If there is a seventh game.”