Kansas City got a great effort from Felipe Paulino who has been a pleasant surprise since coming over in a trade two weeks ago with the Colorado Rockies. Coming into his start on Monday, Paulino had allowed no runs in 9 1/3 innings.
Paulino held the Blue Jays hitless through five innings on Monday night and finished with a line of 6.2 innings pitched, allowing two runs on three hits. Only one of the runs was earned as Toronto took a 1-0 lead in the fourth without a hit on a Jose Bautista grounder that scored Yunel Escobar.
Mike Aviles tripled in the bottom half of the fourth, scoring Eric Hosmer as the Royals knotted the game at one.
Toronto added a run in the seventh, before the Royals again answered in the bottom half of the inning as Hosmer walked with the bases loaded.
Greg Holland and Aaron Crow held down the fort in relief to send the game into extra innings where Joakim Soria pitched a scoreless top half of the 10th inning.
Kansas City had a chance in the 10th inning when Hosmer reached with an infield single with one out. After Jeff Francoeur flew out to center, Billy Butler walked for the second time in the game. However, Mike Aviles came up to the plate and rolled over a groundball to short to send the game to the 11th.
In the bottom of the 11th inning, Hosmer once again came through like he has ever since he arrived. His bases loaded single to right in the 11th scored Chris Getz as the Royals moved 26-34 with the win. Soria picked up the win to make his record 4-3, while Frank Francisco took the loss falling to 1-3. Toronto is 30-30 overall.
Hosmer was 2-for-5 with a walk to lead a seven hit Royals attack. The full boxscore can be viewed here.
Kansas City improved to 7-6 in extra inning games this year. The team record is 22 games overall that went into extra, set back in 1970.
The Royals and Toronto will be back on the field Tuesday evening with Vin Mazzaro (0-0 22.74 ERA) having been recalled to make the start against Kyle Drabek (3-4 4.69).