Nelson Cruz hit two home runs and drove in five runs and Miguel Sano and Mitch Garver also homered to lead the Minnesota Twins to an 8-5 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Thursday night in Minneapolis.

Cruz hit a three-run homer in the third inning and a two-run blast in the seventh to give him 39 homers and 102 RBIs for the season and 399 home runs for his career, tying Andres Galarraga and Al Kaline for 57th place in major league history.

Garver finished with two hits and two walks scored three runs, Sano also doubled and walked and had two RBIs, and Eddie Rosario also had two hits and scored a run for Minnesota (94-59).

The Twins remained four games in front of the Cleveland Indians (90-63) in the American League Central with nine games remaining and have a magic number of six to clinch the division.

Lewis Thorpe (3-2) gave up two runs on six hits in four innings of relief to pick up the victory. Taylor Rogers had two strikeouts which retiring the side in order in the ninth for his 28th save.

Nicky Lopez went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI, and Alex Gordon and Ryan McBroom also had two hits for Kansas City (56-98) which lost for the sixth time in its last seven games. Jacob Barnes (1-3) took the loss.

Kansas City took a 3-0 lead and chased Minnesota starter Kyle Gibson in the second inning when seven consecutive batters reached base, four by walks, including back-to-back free passes with the bases loaded.

Lopez had an RBI single to drive in Erick Mejia, who had walked. After Whit Merrifield walked to load the bases, Adalberto Mondesi and Jorge Soler followed with RBI walks before reliever Zack Littell replaced Gibson and got Hunter Dozier to ground out to end the inning.

Minnesota took a 4-3 lead in the third on Cruz's three-run homer to right and a 432-foot solo shot into the third deck in left by Sano.

Kansas City rebounded to take a 5-4 lead with an RBI fielder's choice by Mondesi in the fourth and a sacrifice fly by Meibrys Viloria in the fifth.

The Twins regained the lead in the bottom of the fifth on a solo home run by Garver and an RBI double by Sano. Cruz made it 8-5 in the seventh with a two-run, 422-foot homer to center.

--Field Level Media