The Toronto Blue Jays hosted the Kansas City Royals in an American League showdown on Tuesday night. The home team jumped out to an early lead thanks to Darwin Barney and then extended that lead thanks to Barney an inning later. Here's a look at the latest Royals vs. Blue Jays game recap, including top performers, statistics, a standings update, and what's next for each of these teams.

MLB game recap

After five scoreless innings between the two teams, things picked up for the Toronto Blue Jays in the bottom of the sixth. That's when Darwin Barney smacked out his fifth home run of the season, connecting on a pitch by Ian Kennedy.

One man was on at the time and the home team took a 2-0 lead. They'd add another three runs in the next inning, with Barney once again coming up with an RBI. Russell Martin had the other two RBIs for the team on a double on the seventh inning. For the game, the two players were combined 3-for-6 with five RBIs.

The Kansas City Royals added two runs between the seventh and eighth innings. One of those RBIs came from Mike Moustakas in the seventh, while Alex Gordon delivered his eighth home run of the season in the eighth inning. However, Kansas City couldn't find any more runs for the remainder of the game as the Jays' pitching held them scoreless to close out the ninth. Second baseman Whitt Merrifield had two hits for the team but was unable to deliver any RBIs.

Picking up the win for the Blue Jays today was Marcus Strowman. He pitched seven innings and had five strikeouts while giving up four hits and a run to Kansas City. Strowman is now 12-8 for the season. Roberto Osuna earned the save, his 37th this year, while the Royals' Ian Kennedy (4-12) took the loss. Kennedy pitched five innings and had just two strikeouts while giving up three hits and two runs.

Standings & what's next

With the win, the Toronto Blue Jays are still under .500 at 71-80 overall. They improve their record at home to 40-36 for the season. Toronto is 7.5 games behind the second of two Wild Card teams in the American League. They'll look for another home win on Wednesday as they host the Royals again at 7:06 p.m.

Eastern Time with Brett Anderson on the mound.

The Kansas City Royals fall to 73-77 on the season with a 34-41 mark on the road. Kansas City is still clinging to hopes of a hot streak to get the Minnesota Twins' Wild Card spot, but they're five games back as the season is winding down. The Royals send Jake Junis out as their starting pitcher for Wednesday evening's away game against the Blue Jays.
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