Three Takeaways From the Royals' 6-5 Loss to the Twins
Despite two, two-run home runs from designated hitter Salvador Perez and shortstop Adalberto Mondesi, the Kansas City Royals dropped the middle game of their series against the Minnesota Twins 6-5.
The loss drops the Royals to 24-26 on the season while the win brings the Twins to 21-30. Kansas City still sits 3.5 games ahead of Minnesota in the American League Central standings.
Here are three things to take away from this afternoon's game.
Salvador Perez loves to play at Target Field.
With his home run today, Perez has hit 19 home runs at Target Field, most of any opposing player. The 31-year-old got "half" of a day off as he was the team's designated hitter as he went 1-for-4 on the afternoon with two RBIs. In his 10-year MLB career, Perez has slashed .324/.344/.598 with a .942 OPS in Minnesota's home ballpark. With one more game left in the series, the Royals will want a little more of that "Salvy Magic" at Target Field if they want to leave Minneapolis with a series win.
Royals pitchers did what they could.
The Royals really did the best with what they had today as Ervin Santana made the spot start for Kansas City. Santana went three innings, giving up three runs on two hits while striking out two. Newly called up Carlos Hernandez came in relief for Santana but took a while to settle down. Hernandez turned in 4 1/3 innings where he allowed the Twins to score three runs on four hits. The 24-year-old also collected six strikeouts. Greg Holland finished off the eighth inning as the 35-year-old allowed one walk in 2/3 of an inning pitched. Thankfully, the Royals didn't use any of their big-time relievers as Kansas City will be back to the top of their rotation for the rubber match tomorrow.
Adalberto Mondesi is back
After being recalled to the big-league club to start the road trip, Adalberto Mondesi has been playing really well in his first games of the season. After the game today, Mondesi's batting average rose 32 percentage points to .389 and his OPS rose to 1.111 on the season. While Mondesi has only recorded 18 at-bats and played in five games for Kansas City, it's worth noting the sample size is small. But what the 25-year-old has done for the lineup in his short time back is impressive. His home run made the game interesting and because of him, the Royals really never felt out of the game.
