Butler said the Royals were fortunate to get Morrow when the right-hander wasn’t at his best.
“I’ve definitely seen him light the radar gun up for eight or nine innings at 95 plus and have a really sharp slider,’’ Butler said. “That’s guy’s got great stuff.
“Today it looked like he didn’t have good command of his off-speed stuff,’’ Butler added. “His fastball was a little up and just hitting too much of the plate.’’
While Morrow struggled with his command, Royals starter Bruce Chen had no such troubles, matching a career-high with nine strikeouts to win four consecutive starts for the first time in his career.
“I was throwing strikes, I was using all my pitches,’’ Chen said. “I had really good command of my curveball, my cutter and my change-up. Today is one of those days where everything was working in and out and I was changing speeds very well.’’
Chen (9-5) allowed three runs and four hits in 7 2-3 innings and improved to 4-1 with a 3.68 ERA in five August starts. He’s 18-9 in 61 career August games, his most wins in any month.
“Everything was firing on all cylinders for him,’’ infielder Mike Moustakos said. “When (manager Ned Yost) came out there and took him out he said it’s the best he’s seen Bruce pitch in a while. He was dominant for us tonight.’’
It had been more than a decade since Chen’s last nine-strikeout game, June 13, 2001, at Tampa Bay. Of his 92 pitches, 67 were strikes.
“He kept us on our feet and kept them on their heels,’’ Moustakos said.
Jeff Francoeur matched his career high with four hits and the Royals, who had lost six of their previous seven away from home, pounded out 16 hits to open a 10-game, 10-day road trip on a winning note.
“Our attack was well-balanced,’’ Yost said. “We drove the gaps, we did a nice job in our situational hitting and got big hits when we needed to.’’
Chen was perfect through three innings before Blue Jays shortstop Yunel Escobar singled to open the fourth, snapping an 0-for-17 slump.
