KANSAS CITY, MO. – The Twins have had a habit of scoring in the early innings and then doing little in the late innings, and it has cost them a couple of games.
Not on Saturday. After scoring in the first inning they put away Kansas City with a three-run seventh inning on the way to a 7-2 victory at Kauffman Stadium.
Righthander Randy Dobnak went five-plus innings to improve to 5-1 and join Cleveland's Shane Bieber with the most wins in the majors.
"Pretty good, but I think he has about 100 more strikeouts than me," Dobnak said of tying Bieber. "We're definitely both different kinds of pitchers. He does his thing. I do my thing. Obviously good results are happening for both of us."
Eddie Rosario and Miguel Sano hit home runs, and LaMonte Wade Jr. added two hits.
The Twins didn't waste time taking it to the Royals. Max Kepler led off the game with a double, and Jorge Polanco reached on an infield hit. Rosario then blasted the first pitch he saw out to right-center for a three-run homer.
Sano led off the fourth with his fifth home run, a 458-foot blast to left that hit the Royals Hall of Fame building and made it 4-0.
"You know what's the funny part about that?" Sano said. "I didn't hit it really great. If I got the whole barrel on it, I would have got it over [the building]."
Dobnak ran into trouble in the fifth, giving up a home run to Alex Gordon and an RBI double to Nicky Lopez. He took the mound for the sixth but was gone two batters later. Tyler Duffey replaced him and, after hitting Gordon to load the bases with one out, struck out the next two batters.
Any thoughts by the Royals of a rally were squashed in the seventh when the Twins scored three runs, including a two-out, two-strike, two-run single by Sano.
