Royals Hang On Against Twins

A closer shave than you’d like at the end, but the Royals continued their impressive run and gained another game on the Tigers in the division race on Friday night.

The Twins scored first in the third inning when Danny Duffy made a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt attempt by Danny Santana. Brian Dozier grounded out to score another run and the Twins were up 2-0.

The Royals answered quickly though and scored five runs in the top of the next inning as Salvador Perez, Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon doubled, singled, and got hit by a pitch in that order to load the bases. Recent acquisition Josh Willingham then stroked a bases-clearing double to left against his former team. The Royals weren’t done as Mike Moustakas and Alcides Escobar proceeded to single and triple to score two more and the Royals were up 5-2 with no outs. The Twins got things under control, however, and retired the next three Kansas City batters.

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The Royals were able to grab another run in the eighth which proved to be pivotal. After singles from Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar blooped a single over Brian Dozier’s head to plate a sixth run for the Royals.

Greg Holland came in to close things out of the ninth and acquired the save but struggled in the journey towards that end. He gave up a walk to Kurt Suzuki to start things off and followed that by allowing an Oswaldo Arcia double that scored a run. Arcia was able to move up to third when no one was able to to cut off a somewhat wild throw by Lorenzo Cain. Holland then got Eduardo Escobar to pop up to Alex Gordon for the first out of the inning. Chris Parmelee then grounded out to Billy Butler which plated the fifth run for the Twins to make the score 6-5. Holland was finally able to prevail in a somewhat more Hollandeque manner as he ended the game by getting Danny Santana to strike out swinging.

Danny Duffy labored a bit in this game going 5.1 innings grabbing only one strikeout while giving up zero walks and two earned runs. Aaron Crow and Francisley Bueno each only saw a batter apiece to finish out that sixth inning before the 7/8/9 Path of Pain took the reins. Despite Holland’s troubles, both Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis were solid throwing an inning of scoreless relief apiece.

The Royals attempt to widen the gap between their record and Detroit’s tomorrow evening.