MINNEAPOLIS — In this season of warning-track fly balls and frustrated sluggers, two home runs are usually enough to win. The Twins relied on that Friday.
Jorge Polanco connected in the first inning, Carlos Correa smacked a 432-footer in the fourth, and Minnesota eventually pulled away from the dogged Royals, 10-7 at Target Field. The victory ended a two-game losing streak and improved the Twins' record to 10-2 when homering twice, an .833 winning percentage that's even better than the .716 major league average.
The formula isn't perfect, however. The Royals homered twice, too — and fell to 4-5 when they do.
Polanco's home run onto the right-field plaza was the biggest blow in Minnesota's four-run first inning, but anyone who thought the game was over that early hasn't been watching these teams lately. Kansas City rallied for three runs off starter Bailey Ober and one more off reliever Danny Coulombe, marking the third straight Twins-Royals game that an early lead disappeared.
Fortunately for the Twins, Correa, who hadn't homered since May 4, clobbered a 1-0 fastball from K.C. starter Brad Keller that bullpen catcher Anderson de la Rosa caught. The Twins tacked on another run on singles by Polanco and Gary Sanchez, and a sacrifice fly by Trevor Larnach.
That was enough, thanks to some solid defense by each of the Twins' four infielders, big outs recorded by relievers Trevor Megill, Caleb Thielbar and Jhoan Duran — and the Royals' misuse of their replay challenge.
When K.C. manager Mike Matheny was convinced that first baseman Luis Arraez had stretched an inch or two off the bag to catch Gio Urshela's throw, he appealed Hunter Dozier's ground out. But replay umpires couldn't detect any space between Arraez's shoe and the base, and the call was upheld.
It mattered two innings later, when Royals catcher MJ Melendez hit into a Polanco-to-Correa-to-Arraez double play with nobody out — or so ruled first-base umpire Adam Beck. Replays proved that Melendez beat Correa's relay, but the Royals no longer had the right to challenge Beck's call, and the inning ended without another run scoring.
Would the game have changed had the Royals not been shortchanged? The Twins, after all, had blown leads and lost each of the past two nights. This time, however, they piled on four more runs in the eighth inning to remove any doubt.
In all, six different Twins drove in runs, led by Nick Gordon's three and two apiece from Urshela and Polanco.
Ober made his second start since returning from a groin injury, and it turned out to be his shortest and arguably least effective of the season. The second-year right-hander had little trouble with the Royals in the first and second innings, allowing only one hit.
But Ober needed 31 pitchers to retire the side in the third inning, with back-to-back singles setting up Bobby Witt Jr's two-run triple high off the scoreboard in right-center. Witt came home on a single by Dozier, and when the inning ended, manager Rocco Baldelli decided to pull the pitcher for baseball reasons, not health.
That decision triggered an all-hands night for the bullpen, with seven relievers taking part. The no-replay double play was the team-leading fifth induced by Joe Smith, but the right-hander also served up his first home run of the season, a solo blast by Witt that left the rookie just a double short of the cycle.
