If the Toronto Maple Leafs expect to play beyond the first round of the Intercounty Baseball League playoffs, then they are going to have to get much better pitching than they have so far in round one.

The Guelph Royals pounded out 16 hits and embarrassed the Leafs 14-2 in game 5 of their opening round best-of-seven series Sunday afternoon at Dominico Field at Christie Pits, putting the Leafs on the verge of playoff elimination.

Game 6 in the series is Monday afternoon in Guelph, a game the Leafs will have to win in order to force a seventh game in Toronto on Tuesday night. And the only way that Game 7 gets played is if the Leafs finally find a way to solve the Royals offence.

Guelph has scored 44 runs in the first five games of the series, including 33 in the past three games along, and even routed the usually reliable Toronto starter Marek Deska on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Pits.

“You can’t get the kind of pitching we’ve been getting in this series and expect to win,” Leaf owner Jack Dominico said. “Most of the guys we’ve put in there just haven’t got the job done and it’s making it tough to win games when you’re giving up all these runs.”

The Leafs dug themselves out of a 6-2 hole to rally to win Game 4 8-7 in Guelph on Saturday, but there was never a threat of a similar comeback in this one. The Royals scored a single run in the second and added four more in the third before three more runs in the fifth finished Deska’s afternoon.

The usually reliable Deska struggled, lasted just 4 2/3 innings and throwing 117 pitches. He was roughed up for eight runs – six of them earned – on 11 hits with seven strikeouts and three walks to take the loss.

Four relievers finished up, including outfielder Kyle Degrace, who pitched two innings of relief in an attempt to save some bullpen arms for the final two games of the series. He was actually pretty effective, allowing just one unearned run and one hit, but by then the score was totally out of reach.

“It’s pretty bad to see a position player having to finish up in a playoff game,” Dominico added.

Guelph starter Mike Goemans struggled with his control but wound up getting the job done, despite using five walks. He allowed one run on four hits over seven innings, striking out three, before two relievers finished up.

Peter Bako had a huge day at the plate for the Royals, belting a pair of home runs and driving in six runs with three hits and three runs scored. Jeremy Ware homered, had three hits, scored twice and drove in two runs, while Sean Reilly also homered, had two hits and drove in three more runs.

Frankie Hare added two hits and two RBI and Kevin Hinton also delivered two hits for the Royals.

Degrace had two hits and drove in a run for the Leafs, while Jared Ivan had Toronto’s other RBI.