After losing Salvador Perez, Royals stage comeback in 10-3 victory over the Twins

The baseball hit flesh and rattled bone, and the sound — a dull crack that no manager wants to hear — echoed throughout Target Field late Tuesday night. The sound quieted the Royals’ dugout and caused manager Ned Yost to move from his position.

In the moments after Salvador Perez absorbed a baseball in the right forearm, baseball’s toughest man spun back toward the dugout and removed the helmet from his head. For a moment, he just sat there, tucked in a crouch, grimacing as Yost and trainer Nick Kenney climbed the stairs of the dugout.

“It was not a good sound,” Yost said.

It was the top of the seventh inning and Perez, the reigning World Series Most Valuable Player, was in a serious degree of pain. An errant 92-mph fastball from the right hand of Ervin Santana had burrowed itself into his right arm and forced him from the game.

By the end, the moment became an unexpected spark in 10-3 comeback victory over the Minnesota Twins that left the Royals four games behind Baltimore for the second AL Wild Card spot. Terrance Gore pinch ran for Perez, stole second base and tied the game at 3-3 after an RBI single from Alcides Escobar. Reserve catcher Drew Butera, Perez’s replacement, supplied the go-ahead RBI in the ninth, shooting a bases-loaded single to right field.

Butera’s single came before the offense turned the night into a rout, but after the dugout had received a dose of positive news. At least for now, Perez’s diagnosis was limited to a bruised left wrist.

Yost said he did not expect Perez to play on Wednesday in the series finale, but he was unsure on the severity of the bruise.

“There was and is concern,” said Royals designated hitter Kendrys Morales, who spoke through translator Pedro Grifol. “Because he’s our primary guy behind the plate, and he’s a guy we’ve been through (stuff with) together. It’s a tough one to lose.”

The final score, of course, belied the true nature of this contest. The Royals opened things up in the ninth, scoring seven runs against a crumbling Twins bullpen. Morales finished the carnage, sending his second homer of the night into the bullpen in left field.

“It’s been some time now where he’s starting to feel really, really good,” Grifol said, translating for Morales. “And now he’s comfortable at the plate.”

Morales was 2 for 5 with five RBIs, ending the night with 25 homers after clubbing three in two games here in Minnesota. The Royals (72-66) won for the second straight night and improved to 13-2 against the Twins in 2016. They can complete a three-game sweep when left-hander Danny Duffy takes the mound on Wednesday night.

Morales had opened the scoring in the top of the first, unloading a two-run homer off a staircase that lines an outdoor concourse in far right field. The mammoth homer was Morales’ 24th of the season and represented the second highest total of his career. The baseball traveled an estimated 429 feet and looked nearly identical to a three-run shot Morales hit on Monday afternoon.

The lead would last just a half inning. Twins second baseman Brian Dozier, born again as Barry Bonds circa 2001, drilled a leadoff homer off Royals starter Dillon Gee in the bottom of the first, prolonging an absurd display of power.

The homer was Dozier’s seventh in his last five games, his fourth of the series and his 11th against the Royals in 2016. The latter extended a single-season record against the Royals, set on Monday night, and was the most by one player against one team since Bonds hit 11 against the San Diego Padres in 2001. (Yes, that was the year Bonds hit 73 homers.)

Moments later, Gee surrendered a two-out solo homer to Trevor Plouffe, who deposited a game-tying shot into the bullpens beyond left field. One inning later, Eddie Rosario broke a 2-2 tie with an opposite-field shot that tucked inside the left-field foul pole. Inside the dugout, Yost wondered if he needed to get a reliever up in the bullpen. But Gee would settle in, surviving through the sixth inning.

The Kansas City offense, meanwhile, spent the next four innings spinning its wheels against Santana, the former Royals starter who entered Tuesday with a 3.54 ERA. In the fifth and sixth, the Royals put a runner at third base with less than two outs. Each time, they could not find a way to score.

“Ervin Santana is so tough in those spots,” Yost said. “He’s not going to give in and he’s not going to make a mistake. He’d just as soon walk you and play off your aggressiveness.”

Finally, it all changed in the seventh. Perez took a fastball to the forearm. The Royals pounced on the opportunity. Just days after ending a tough home stand with series losses against New York and Detroit, the Royals opened a road trip with two straight wins.

“We feel like we’ve been playing good baseball,” said Gee, who shook off a slow start and offered a respectable effort. “Those were two rough series (against New York and Detroit). But we definitely all know we have a run in us.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2016 at 10:39 PM with the headline "After losing Salvador Perez, Royals stage comeback in 10-3 victory over the Twins."