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Royals heading home after 3-1 victory over Twins
By BOB DUTTONThe Kansas City Star
Tight pitching, solid defense and just enough hitting enabled them to avoid spitting back all of the positive vibes generated by opening the season with a three-game sweep in Detroit.
“If you told us before we started that we were going to come home 4-2, I think everybody would have been happy,” catcher John Buck said.
The Royals lost two tight games to the Twins before Sunday’s victory. They have an open date today before beginning their home schedule Tuesday afternoon against the New York Yankees at Kauffman Stadium.
“Going home 4-2 after playing two divisional teams, that’s huge,” reliever Jimmy Gobble said. “Now, we’re going in (to the home opener) on a roll instead of being 3-3. It was a huge win for us as far as early games go”
Brett Tomko pitched five shutout innings in his first start even if he did labor through 92 pitches in doing so. He threw 27 pitches in an extended first inning and was up to 69 after three innings.
Still, Tomko, 1-0, didn’t give up any runs; just six hits and one walk while striking out three. He got the victory when the bullpen held the Twins to one run and two hits over the final four innings.
Joakim Soria struck out the side in the ninth and got his third save.
“Overall,” Tomko said, “I was pretty happy considering it was my first start of the season. When you have a good bullpen you know, as a starter, if you go five or six innings, you know those guys are going to shut it down.”
Billy Butler had three of the Royals’ nine hits and raised his average to .400 at 10 for 25 with hits in all six games on the trip.
But Alex Gordon had the key blows in Sunday’s victory. His two-run single opened the scoring in the second inning, and his leadoff double in the seventh led to the Royals’ final run.
“We need to get the bats rolling a little bit more,” left fielder Mark Teahen said, “but our pitching has been great. Defensively, we’ve been looking good, and we’ve been finding ways to win.”
The Royals committed only one error in 54 innings over their six-game trip, while their staff compiled a 2.67 ERA. Their bullpen has been even better, allowing only two runs and eight hits in 17 innings. The relief corps also had 22 strikeouts and just three walks.
“You can’t ask for more than that,” manager Trey Hillman said.
Ron Mahay inherited a 2-0 lead starting the sixth and got two quick outs before Justin Morneau crushed a homer into the upper deck in right field. That ended Mahay’s streak of nine straight scoreless appearances dating to last year.
Mahay worked a scoreless seventh before Leo Nuñez got two quick outs in the eighth. A two-out double by Matt Tolbert brought Gobble into the game for a lefty-lefty matchup against Joe Mauer.
Mauer flied to left.
Tomko pitched around two singles in the first inning but waged an exhausting 11-pitch battle with Mauer before inducing a foul fly to left.
The second and third innings were little better. Tomko needed 22 pitches to work around Brendan Harris’ one-out double in the second and 20 pitches against four hitters in the third.
“We made him throw a lot of pitches early,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said, “but he made a lot of pitches, too.”
The Royals, for the third straight game, took an early 2-0 lead. And once again, they took a while before doing anything more.
The big difference this time is it didn’t cost them.
José Guillen led off the second inning with a single up the middle. Butler followed with a double to right before Gordon sliced a two-run single to left.
Gordon tried to stretch his single into a double and was thrown out, easily, by Delmon Young. “It was a good week,” Tomko said, “considering the skeptics have us finishing bare-naked last. I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people. To go in and sweep the Tigers and be in all three games here … 4-2 is a nice way to start.”