TORONTO — In a season of solid outings by Mark Buehrle, this stood out as one of his best.
Buehrle pitched eight sharp innings to become baseball’s first 10-game winner, Edwin Encarnacion homered again and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals 4-0 Sunday.
Buehrle (10-1) won his sixth straight decision, his longest streak since a nine-game run in 2005. He gave up six hits, walked one and struck out three as the Blue Jays finished a 10-game homestand at 8-2.
“Today he was as good as he’s been all year,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “He topped off a nice homestand for us.”
Buehrle lowered his ERA to 2.10 and improved to 25-12 lifetime against the Royals.
“He was dynamite,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He’s traditionally tough on us, but he’s 10-1 now, he’s tough on everybody.”
Typically low key, Buehrle said he considered himself fortunate to keep the Royals off the scoreboard.
“It was one of those games where I could have gotten my butt handed to me,” he said. “I was making mistakes and they weren’t making me pay for it.”
Encarnacion matched Mickey Mantle’s AL record with 16 home runs in May, then started off a new month with another drive. He hit a two-run shot off Aaron Crow in the eighth for his 19th homer of the season.
Dioner Navarro also homered as the AL East-leading Blue Jays, who went 21-9 in May, began June with their 17th victory in 21 games.
Jeremy Guthrie (2-5) lost his fifth straight decision, allowing two runs and eight hits in seven innings.
Guthrie has received just one run of support in his past four outings and is winless in 10 starts.
“With all the pitchers, the offense is definitely not living up to the capability it can live up to right now,” Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said.
Toronto loaded the bases with two outs against Guthrie in the first but Juan Francisco flied out.
Navarro hit a solo homer in the second with a drive into the right-field bullpen.
Francisco hit a leadoff double in the fourth, Brett Lawrie singled and Anthony Gose had an RBI grounder.
The Royals hit a pair of leadoff doubles against Buehrle, but he never allowed a runner reach third base. Alcides Escobar doubled to begin the third but was caught in a rundown on Nori Aoki’s sharp grounder to second.
Hosmer doubled to open the sixth but was thrown out at third by shortstop Jose Reyes on Billy Butler’s grounder into the hole.
Hosmer called it “a stupid baserunning mistake,” but his manager was more charitable.
“It was an aggressive mistake,” Yost said. “Reyes did a great job of ranging over and the only play he had was at third.”
