Blue Jays blank Royals on a magnificent-7 bullpen effort, Nathan Lukes 3-run homer

The odds favored the Blue Jays on Wednesday night, even though they were coming off a potentially troublesome loss to the visiting Kansas City Royals in the series opener.

One has to rewind the clock to July 19-22 to find the previous time the Jays had lost three in a row. But at this stage in the season, every game looms large, and a third consecutive loss would have sounded a few alarms.

However the pitching, defence and timely hitting theme that has helped shape the identity of this club — albeit sporadically — resurfaced in unison as the Jays got back into the win column with a 3-0 victory.

Of the Jays’ six hits, the most impactful was struck by Nathan Lukes, who went deep for a three-run dinger in the fourth inning, his ninth homer of the season.

The win didn’t come without a few nervous moments, however and the appearance of Louis Varland with runners on the corners in the eighth inning and two outs spoke to the magnitude of the night. But the Jays closer required just one pitch to get Jac Caglianone to ground out to second and end the threat.

Varland was the seventh pitcher used by the Jays in this win, a collection of arms that racked up nine strikeouts and held the Royals to six hits — including two yielded by Varland with two outs in the ninth when K.C. again brought the tying run up to the plate.

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In the end, Varland struck out Isaac Collins for the third out to earn his 30th in 31 attempts.

Following are three takeaways as the Jays improved to 65-69 and remained three games behind the surging Cleveland Guardians who hold down the third and final wild-card berth in the American League.

The odds have been saying that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will eventually hit a homer at home.

Time, though, is beginning to run out, at least for this season. The Jays have only 13 remaining at the Rogers Centre in the regular season and, unless they go on some kind of epic run, any potential berth in the post-season will likely involve playing a best-of-three series on the road.

Of the nine players in Toronto’s starting lineup Wednesday, only one had hit fewer homers this season than Vladdy, who has been stuck at seven since belting one on Aug. 8 in Philadelphia.

Alejandro Kirk has seven homers, but he entered Wednesday with 250 fewer at-bats than Guerrero.

Brett Bateman, meanwhile, has yet to do deep, but the kid has only 68 at-bats since being acquired at the trade deadline. Vladdy has 447.