Berrios falters as Blue Jays fall to Royals

It wasn’t the start the Toronto Blue Jays and Jose Berrios envisioned.

In his first regular-season appearance, Berrios took the loss after surrendering nine hits and eight earned runs as the Blue Jays fell 9-4 to the Kansas City Royals on Monday night.

Berrios lasted 5 2/3 innings and struck out seven before being replaced by Canadian reliever Zach Pop. A lot of the damage against Berrios came in the first and fourth innings, where the Royals would score seven runs against the starter.

Berrios also gave up a ton of hard contact on the night, with Royals hitters swinging early and often, leading to seven exit velocities of 100 mph or more. His fastball and sinker were particularly hit hard, with an average exit velocity of 98 mph.

“Good and bad. Really good innings but pitches in the middle of the plate, which we’re trying to avoid,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said post-game.

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The 28-year-old was plagued by hard contact throughout much of last season after he finished with an uncharacteristic 5.23 ERA (100 earned runs) and 29 home runs allowed across his 32 starts in 2022.

It’s yet another uninspiring performance by a Blue Jays starter after Chris Bassitt was clobbered for 10 hits and nine earned runs against the St. Louis Cardinals in his first regular-season start in a Jays uniform. The Blue Jays also lost that game 9-4. Alek Manoah, Bassitt and Berrios have now surrendered 21 earned runs across their first three starts to open the season.

“It’s tough to crawl out of a hole every night, but, you know, we trust these guys,” Schneider said of his starting pitching.

“It’s early and tough… the first time through, they’re trying to get their footing. It’s tough for the offence to get out there and put something together in terms of consistency when you’re down like that.”

At the plate, the Blue Jays tallied 10 hits on Monday night as shortstop Bo Bichette hit Toronto’s first home run of the year. Matt Chapman and Cavan Biggio finished with two hits each, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. finishing with an RBI.

The Blue Jays, now 1-3 on the season, will hand the ball over to Yusei Kikuchi in his first start of the year on Tuesday night in Kansas City, where he will square off against fellow southpaw Kris Bubic.