KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- While Raul Mondesi scored the winning run, it was the Kansas City Royals' bullpen that made the victory possible.

Mondesi scored on Billy Burns' sacrifice fly in the 11th inning as the Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins 4-3 on Tuesday night.

Seven Royals relievers combined to throw six scoreless innings, allowing three singles. Brooks Pounders (2-1) picked up the victory, entering in the 11th with Byron Buxton on first base with one out.

"Just coming in that situation with the go-ahead runner on base, I tried to make good pitches and get the offense back in there," Pounders said.

He retired pinch hitter Kurt Suzuki and Brian Dozier on fly balls to set up the Royals to win in the 11th without a hit.

Mondesi opened the inning by drawing a walk from Tommy Milone, the ninth Twins pitcher. He stole second and Jarrod Dyson advanced him to third on a bunt.

After Whit Merrifield and Eric Hosmer were walked intentionally, Burns delivered the game-winning sacrifice fly to center.

"I was on deck and saw them put Hosmer on," Burns said. "In my mind, I was thinking I had faced Tommy Milone when he was with the A's a couple of years ago. I had seen what he had. He's a very good pitcher that spots up very well. I was thinking, stay middle approach, don't try to pull the ball because he can put it wherever he wants it.

"I was very confident if I got it to the outfield, Mondi was going to score, so that was really what I was trying to do."

The defending World Series champion Royals are five games back in the American League wild-card standings with five games left.

The Twins threatened in the sixth, which included Logan Schafer's leadoff single, Juan Centeno's bunt single and rookie pitcher Scott Alexander's throwing error. With runners on second and third and one out, Peter Moylan replaced Alexander. He struck out Buxton and retired James Beresford on a ground ball to third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert to strand the runners.

Kelvin Herrera walked Eduardo Escobar and Centeno with two out in the eighth, but struck out Buxton to end the inning.

Cuthbert led off the Royals' eight with a single and Terrance Gore ran for him. Gore stole second and third sandwiched around a strikeout. On a suicide squeeze, Merrifield's bunt was caught by first baseman Beresford, who easily doubled Gore off third base.

"It was a perfect situation right there," Royals manager Ned Yost said to bunt. " We had Whit that can handle the bat. We had tremendous speed at third. We had Wade (Davis) coming into the ballgame. All he's got to do is get it down. We put the safety squeeze on there and Gore just read it that it was going to get down. It just didn't."

Escobar, who had not homered in 111 at-bats since Aug. 2 at Cleveland, won a marathon battle royal with right-hander Ian Kennedy in the fourth inning to belt his sixth home run, giving the Twins a 2-0 lead. Escobar fouled off four pitches with two strikes before depositing the 10th Kennedy pitch over the right-field fence. Kennedy yielded 32 home runs this season, but none in his previous three starts.

Escobar singled in the second and scored on Centeno's one-out double to center.

The Royals got to Twins rookie right-hander Jose Berrios for two runs in the fourth to tie the score at 2. Berrios walked Dyson to lead off the inning. Dyson moved to third on Merrifield's double to center. Eric Hosmer's two-strike soft single to center scored Dyson and advanced Merrifield to third. Kendrys Morales grounder to Beresford started a 3-6-3 double play with Merrifield scoring.

After retiring the first two batters in the fifth, Kennedy walked Dozier and Robbie Grossman. Max Kepler dumped a single into shallow center to score Dozier, putting the Twins on top 3-2.

Berrios failed to make it through the fifth and the Royals tied it. With two outs, Dyson punched a 2-2 pitch off rookie left-hander Buddy Boshers into shallow center, scoring Paulo Orlando, who reached when hit by a Berrios pitch.

Berrios was charged with three runs on four hits, a walk and a hit batter in 4 2/3 innings.

"Yeah, my secondary pitches were good; curveball, changeup were pretty good," Berrios said through an interpreter. "And I was falling behind in the count a little bit, but I didn't let that stop me from competing, so I just kept going and went out there and trying to do better as I went."

Kennedy, who threw 106 pitches in five innings, was replaced by Alexander to start the sixth. Kennedy allowed three runs on five hits and three walks, while striking out five.

"With the extra days rest, I felt like he was a little strong," Yost said. "He was up in the zone, which allowed them to foul off a lot of pitches. They got five hits off of him, four of them were stuff that they just kind of fought, little bloopers into the outfield, and then the one double that was hit pretty good. But, he went out and battled pretty well."