Curtis Granderson held up both hands, showing 10 fingers, one for each grand slam.
Granderson ran his career grand slam total into the double digits, Marco Estrada pitched effectively into the seventh inning and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals 6-5 on Wednesday night.
Jorge Lopez (0-2), who was making his Royals debut after being acquired July 27 from Milwaukee as part of the Mike Moustakas trade, threw a 2-0 fastball that Granderson drove over the Royals’ right-field bullpen gate with two outs in the fourth inning.
Granderson’s 10th career grand slam was his second this year, both against the Royals. The first was April 18 in Toronto. He has 19 home runs and 50 RBIs in 106 games against Kansas City.
“You never envision that they’re going to happen because everything has to line itself up for it,” Granderson said. “Actually, finding out today that it was 10 of them. Sure enough, it was the 10th one, but any time you can do that and score that many runs with one swing is cool.”
Royals pitchers have yielded a major league-leading 10 grand slams.
A report surfaced Tuesday that Granderson had cleared waivers, making it possible for the Blue Jays to trade the veteran, who still has pop in his bat at age 37.
“It’s interesting,” Granderson said. “What that means? Not too much, except that there are possibilities, at the same time all outside my control.”
Kevin Pillar singled home Teoscar Hernandez with the first run of the fourth and contributed an RBI single in the second for the Blue Jays, who have won three of four.
Lopez was removed after 4 2/3 innings, allowing six runs on eight hits, two walks and a hit batter.
“I’m a little disappointed with the outing, but it was just one pitch took away the outing,” Lopez said. “When you miss like that with the good hitters, it’s always trouble.”
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