KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Salvador Perez hit a three-run homer in Kansas City’s seven-run first inning and the Royals beat the Toronto Blue Jays 20-1 on Friday night.

The Royals sent 10 batters to the plate against Max Scherzer (5-4), who exited after recording just two outs and allowing seven hits in the shortest noninjury start of his career. It was Scherzer’s shortest outing since facing just one batter while pitching for Washington on June 11, 2021, before leaving with an injury. Also, Scherzer’s seven runs conceded in the first inning are the most allowed in any inning of his career.

According to ESPN Research, Toronto’s 19-run loss ties the largest by a division leader in a September or later regular-season game, joining the previous dubious mark set by the San Diego Padres’ 20-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies in 2005.

Following a homer by George Springer in the top of the first inning, the Royals quickly tied it in the bottom of the inning on Carter Jensen’s leadoff double and Bobby Witt Jr.’s RBI single. Witt scored on Vinnie Pasquantino’s double into the left-field corner to give Kansas City the lead for good.

After a walk to Maikel Garcia — and Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker’s ejection — Perez connected for his 30th home run. Michael Massey’s two-run homer gave Kansas City a 7-1 lead. Then after Carter Jensen hit a ground-rule double — his second two-bagger of the inning — Scherzer was pulled.

Scherzer said he wasn’t overly concerned.

“We’ll deep dive and figure out what was going on, look at more advanced things,” he said. “But when I went back and looked at the location of some of the pitches, I’m actually OK with it. In that regard, you kind of flush it and move on.”

Blue Jays manager John Schneider called it “a weird outing” from a player who’s likely bound for the Hall of Fame.

“Over the course of his career you don’t see that very often from Max, barring an injury,” Schneider said. “They came out swinging and he kind of just left things in the middle.”

Batting leadoff for the first time, Jensen hit three doubles, including a two-run double in the third to go with his two against Scherzer in the first. Jensen became the first Royals player with multiple doubles in the same inning.

Jac Caglianone hit a three-run homer in the seventh as the Royals had 10 runs and 13 hits in 1⅓ innings against catcher Tyler Heineman. Infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa got the last two outs in the eighth inning.

Pasquantino had four of Kansas City’s franchise-record 27 hits, doubling twice as the Royals collected eight extra-base hits in the first three innings.

Royals starter Michael Lorenzen (6-11) gave up a run and three hits with three walks while striking out four in 7⅔ innings for his first win since July 6.

Schneider doesn’t expect Friday’s outing to change anything about Scherzer’s future in the rotation.

“It’s a weird outing to go two-thirds of an inning and throw a lot of pitches,” he said. “But I don’t think that will affect him going forward. It won’t make his pitch count any lower. Going forward he’ll be on a normal workload and kind of normal pitch count.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.