Twins unleash offense, survive shaky finish to take series from Royals

Twins manager Paul Molitor said he and General Manager Terry Ryan recently went through an exercise in which they went down the roster and tried to project how many home runs each player would hit in 2015.

"It usually doesn't work that way," Molitor said. "In fact, it's usually never even close. But we have some guys that can hit the ball over the fence."

The Twins on Thursday showed a little bit of what their offense is capable of during an 8-5 victory over the Royals. They pounded out 14 hits, including home runs by Kennys Vargas and Kurt Suzuki.

It enabled the Twins to win two of three games against the Royals, their first series win of year. Not too many saw it. The attendance of 17,449 was the lowest in Target Field history, and the game was not televised locally.

How about that? It took the defending American League champions — and previously undefeated — Royals to come to the Twin Cities for the Twins halt their season-opening skid. On Monday, the Twins lost their home opener to fall to 1-6 to start the season. Two games later, after two victories, the atmosphere in the Twins clubhouse was entirely different as rap music blared after the game.

"Every team, I feel like, is going to go through a stretch like that," said lefthander Tommy Milone, who went 5⅔ innings to improve to 2-0. "We just happened to start the season like that. We have a lot of confidence in the guys we run out there. We knew it was going to end, hopefully sooner than later. Maybe these two games in a row will kind of jump-start us and put us in a good position."

If the Twins are going to be what they believe they can be, the offense has to click. They scored 715 runs last season, seventh-most in the league. The key players from that team are back this season, so they feel they can swing it. Thursday's game was the first time they enjoyed top-to-bottom production.

"He was able to keep his swing short and keep the ball fair," Molitor said. "That's a line-drive homer off the facade there."

"That's what I used to see on the other side," said Twins outfielder Torii Hunter, who faced Vargas and the Twins last season with Detroit. "I'm glad I'm on this side now. I was in awe. I didn't see David Ortiz hit anything like that. I was glad to see him start to come around and swing that bat pretty well and be that threat we all know he can be."

Salvador Perez gave the Royals a 3-2 lead with an RBI double in the third, but the Twins scored the next six runs with two in the third, one in the fourth and three in the eighth. The three runs in the eighth, which included Suzuki's two-run homer, were the first runs scored off the Royals bullpen this season. Up 8-3 in the ninth, the Twins sent Brian Duensing out, but he gave up two runs, forcing Molitor to bring in closer Glen Perkins, who got his second save.

Five players had at least two hits for the Twins. Joe Mauer drove in three runs. Hunter, who was moved up to the No. 2 spot in the order, was 3-for-5.

The bullpen has struggled and, on Thursday, Trevor Plouffe and Danny Santana were charged with errors. If the Twins are going to reel off victories, their offense will need games like these.