TORONTO -- Josh Donaldson hit a walkoff single in the bottom of the 11th inning as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals 7-6 on Friday night.
Donaldson singled off Royals reliever Franklin Morales to drive home Troy Tulowitzki from second base for the Jays' third straight win. Tulowitzki went 2-for-5 in his third game with Toronto.
The Blue Jays (53-51) were able to erase a three-run deficit twice against the AL Central-leading Royals (61-41) in the victory.
Toronto starter Drew Hutchison allowed just three earned runs in five innings of work.
Kansas City's newest ace, Johnny Cueto, made his debut, allowing three runs and striking out seven over six innings.
Blue Jays relievers Aaron Sanchez, Robert Osuna, Brett Cecil and Liam Hendricks, meanwhile, combined for four perfect innings. Hendricks picked up the win -- pushing his record to 3-0.
Toronto was at the centre of the trade frenzy all week with the acquisitions of ace starter David Price, Tulowitzki, relievers LaTroy Hawkins and Mark Lowe and outfielder Ben Revere.
Revere and Lowe, picked up in separate trades earlier in the day, will have to wait to make their impact later in the series. Price watched from the dugout with his debut scheduled for Monday against the Minnesota Twins.
The Royals jumped on Hutchison with two outs in the first inning. Kendrys Morales's two-run double to right centre did the first damage, and Ben Zobrist's RBI single made it 3-0 before Cueto even took the mound.
Cueto started off dominant, setting down the first six Blue Jays betters, two by strikeout.
Ezequiel Carrera's bunt single to lead off the third got Toronto going, and Donaldson's two-run double cut into the deficit. In the fourth, Kevin Pillar's RBI single tied the score at three.
Hutchison lasted only one batter into the sixth. Left-hander Aaron Loup replaced him and faced only one hitter after Donaldson's throw on a broken bat roller by Eric Hosmer sailed over the head of first baseman Justin Smoak, leading to a Royals run.
A sacrifice fly by Morales made it 5-3, and the Royals tacked on another on a single by Alcides Escobar in the seventh making it 6-3.
With Cueto done after 111 pitches in six innings, that's when the Blue Jays chipped away. Tulowitzki's single to centre somehow got past Lorenzo Cain to get one run home, and that error opened the door for a three-run inning.
Toronto lit up reliever Ryan Madson, who entered with a 1.69 ERA. Madson didn't record an out, but the Blue Jays couldn't take the lead against Kelvin Herrera after Smoak hit into a double play that scored one and Russell Martin grounded out.
Tulowitzki singled and got to second on a balk called on Morales in the 11th before Donaldson drove him in.
Notes -- Edwin Encarnacion returned to the Blue Jays' lineup after a two-game absence with a jammed left middle finger. ... With Price starting Monday, R.A. Dickey will pitch on short rest Sunday in the series finale with the Royals. Attendance at Rogers Centre was 29,388.
