Misfortune costs Montgomery as KC falls to Jays

KANSAS CITY -- Royals left-hander Mike Montgomery, acquired earlier this month from the Cubs for catcher Martin Maldonado, continues to build up his arm strength as a regular part of the rotation.

And Montgomery’s final line Tuesday night -- 4 1/3 innings, seven hits, four earned runs, one walk and four strikeouts -- was a little misleading. Two of the key hits against Montgomery in a 9-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Kauffman Stadium were the result of simple misfortune.

• Box score

Montgomery gave up two runs on four singles in the first, the last an RBI hit by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on a ground ball that would have been fielded by shortstop Humberto Arteaga if it hadn’t hit the lip between the infield grass and dirt. That caused the ball to skid under Arteaga’s glove and into center field.

“A lot of soft singles,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “It took him a minute to get going. All the damage they did in the first inning were on changeups.”

In the fifth, the Blue Jays had runners on second and third with one out when Montgomery sent a cutter in on the hands of Freddy Galvis, shattering his bat. But Galvis nonetheless blooped a two-run single over the infield for a 4-0 lead.

“It was a frustrating night all around,” Montgomery said. “I thought I made so many good pitches and no results to show for it. I definitely thought I threw better than the results. You just have to grind it out.”

Montgomery threw 78 pitches, 54 for strikes, and relied heavily on his changeup early. In fact, three of the Jays’ first four hits came off changeups.

“They were an aggressive team going into it, so that was the plan,” Montgomery said. “A couple of broken-bat hits and they go up, 2-0. But from there, you just try to keep your team in it. Then in the fifth, I get the ground ball I needed and it just goes past third. Sometimes, it goes that way.

“And then you have Galvis’ broken-bat hit over the shortstop. You just can’t look at the results of those. I was talking to [pitching coach] Cal [Eldred] and he was saying, ‘Hey, those were good pitches. Don’t read too much into it.”

The main thing for Montgomery, though, is he should be stretched out enough to throw 90-100 pitches next time out.

“He added another 13 pitches this time,” Yost said, “so he’s about full go next time out.”

The Royals’ offense, held to three runs Monday night, was again mostly silent. They scored their first run on a Meibrys Viloria double in the eighth. But a potentially bigger inning was stifled when Alex Gordon’s liner with two runners on was speared by a diving Randal Grichuk in right field.

The Royals finished 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position.

“We just couldn’t get a big hit,” Yost said. “The game had the feel that we were going to be kind of out of it the whole game. We battled, battled, battled and then, nothing to show for it.”