KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Nelson Cruz hit his 10th homer, Marwin Gonzalez had two RBIs and closer Taylor Rogers dodged trouble in the ninth inning to lift the Minnesota Twins over the Kansas City Royals 5-4 on Sunday.
Cruz connected on closer Trevor Rosenthal’s 99 mph fastball for a solo shot that went an estimated 441 feet to center field in the ninth inning. The drive gave Minnesota a two-run lead and helped the Twins win their eighth series in nine tries this season.
“You definitely have to be straight to the ball,” Cruz said. “We know that he throws hard and he has some good breaking balls.”
Max Wisler opened with two scoreless innings for Minnesota and Tyler Clippard (1-0) got the win with a perfect eighth. Rogers allowed an RBI single to Maikel Franco in the ninth but retired Alex Gordon to complete his sixth save.
“Our guys dealt with very high stress situations time and time again today,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “There was nothing that came easy for either team. Even though the score didn’t change a ton, there was a lot going on.”
Kansas City also had the bases loaded with two outs in the seventh inning, but Adalberto Mondesi struck out against Sergio Romo. The Royals are 2 for 21 with the bases loaded this season.
“It comes down to those situations and those are opportunities we are going to get it done, but frustrating not to have done it yet,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said.
Kris Bubic (0-4), the Royals’ 2018 first-round pick, allowed four runs and nine hits in 3 1/3 innings. He’s yet to get a win in any of his five big league starts.
“The results haven’t look great, but I’m just going to keep learning,” Bubic said. “Hopefully next year I’ll laugh about outings like this one.”
