Royals 4, Twins 3: Salvador Perez mashes two homers

1st inning: Chris Archer works around a double and a walk, stranding a pair of runners on with a strikeout of Andrew Benintendi.

2nd inning: Nothing happened, 1-2-3 inning from both squads.

3rd inning: Gary Sanchez hits a double, but is thrown out at the plate by Michael A. Taylor.

4th inning: Nick Gordon hits a 1-out triple, and scores thanks to Gio Urshela’s single to right. Sanchez caps it off with an RBI double to center giving the Twins a 2-0 advantage. Salvador Perez cuts into that with a solo HR to left, 2-1 Twins.

5th inning: Luis Arraez, making his first start of his career at 1st base, lines a double to right, and Carlos Correa brings him home with a single to make it a 3-1 game. Archer allows a couple singles, then a pair of walks drive in a run. Joe Smith comes in and immediately gets a double play grounder out of Bobby Witt Jr. to end the inning. 3-2, Minnesota.

Archer didn’t have great control in this game, and it showed with 3 walks in 4.1 IP. Still, not a bad start as he only allowed a couple runs.

6th inning: Tyler Duffey enters, and the Royals quickly jumped on him. Perez smashes his 2nd homer of the game to tie it up, then Hunter Dozier hits a homer of his own to put the Royals up 4-3. Duffey’s ERA is now an even 9.00.

Jhon Romero tossed the remaining two innings of the game, and did well, striking out 2 and not letting the game get away from us. The only problem with that is that the Twins lineup didn’t get the memo and couldn’t push any runs across late in the game, giving us the final of 4-3, Royals.

Studs:

Luis Arraez: 2-4, BB. The Twins need his bat in the lineup as much as possible, putting him at 1B seemed to work out pretty well.

Nick Gordon: 1-2, 3B.

Joe Smith: The aforementioned double play took him just 2 pitches, maybe should have left him in.

Jhon Romero: 2 IP, 2 H, 2 K, 0 ER

Duds:

Tyler Duffey: 1 IP, 3 H, 2 HR

Correa, Kepler, Polanco: 2-12, 10 LOBsters.

Notes:

• Salvador Perez has made a career of killing the Twins, who he now has 30 HRs against.
• This game continues the trend of the 2022 Twins getting decent starting pitching, but not enough from the bullpen and lineup to win the game. That needs to be worked on.

Comment of the game: James Fillmore

“Gladden: “nice job by Archer. Three up — uh, actually there was one hit, that was the home run.”