Adalberto Mondesi homered and drove in a career-high four runs, and Brian Flynn pitched four innings of one-hit of relief to pick up his first win of the season as the Kansas City Royals snapped a season-worst, 10-game losing streak with a 9-4 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night in Minneapolis.
It was just the fifth win in 33 games for the Royals. Kansas City also snapped a 30-game streak of not scoring more than five runs in a game, the longest by an American League team since the 1972 Texas Rangers had a 33-game slump.
Alex Gordon added a two-run homer in the ninth. Whit Merrifield had two doubles and scored a pair of runs while extending his hitting streak to 12 games, and Gordon, Mondesi, Hunter Dozier, Lucas Duda and Alcides Escobar each had two hits for the Royals, who won for the first time since a 5-4 victory at Milwaukee on June 27.
Brian Dozier homered and Max Kepler had an RBI triple for Minnesota. which had its five-game win streak snapped.
Twins starter Aaron Slegers (1-1) gave up seven hits and five runs in 1 1/3 innings in his second start of the season and fifth of his major league career. The 6-foot-10 right-hander had picked up his first major league win on Thursday, when he yielded just three hits and a run over six innings in a 5-2 victory over Baltimore.
Kansas City starter Ian Kennedy, searching for his first win since April 7 at Cleveland, left the game after allowing two runs on five hits over three innings. The Royals announced that Kennedy, activated earlier in the day from the 10-day disabled list, left the game with a recurrence of left side tightness.
Enter Flynn, who blanked the Twins over the next four innings. He walked two while striking out three. Jason Hammel, making his first relief appearance since the 2014 American League wild-card game with Oakland against the Royals, gave up two runs on three hits over the final two innings.
--Field Level Media
Kansas City | Minnesota | |
Ian Kennedy | Player | Aaron Slegers |
No Decision | W/L | Loss |
3.0 | IP | 1.1 |
3 | Strikeouts | 0 |
5 | Hits | 7 |
6.00 | ERA | 33.75 |
Kansas City | Minnesota | |
Whit Merrifield | Player | Jake Cave |
2 | Hits | 1 |
0 | RBI | 0 |
0 | HR | 0 |
4 | TB | 1 |
.667 | Avg | .500 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Kansas City | 15 | 2 | 25 | .375 | 15 | 8 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
Minnesota | 9 | 1 | 15 | .265 | 15 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |