Royals end home stand on sour note with 3-2 loss to Twins in 12 innings

After letting opportunities slip away in the ninth and the 10th, the Royals dropped a 3-2 decision to the Minnesota Twins in 12 innings Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium to end a deflating home stand on a similar note. Twins rookie Miguel Sano bashed a solo shot off reliever Franklin Morales, the seventh Kansas City pitcher used in the game, after the umpire appeared to ignore a potential called-third strike.

Behind the dish, Greg Gibson ruled Morales’ 2-2 fastball, which appeared to catch the inner half of the plate at the waist, was a ball. Two pitches later, Sano unveiled his thunderous power and boomed the game-deciding homer over the left-field fence.

“The pitch was right there,” Morales said of the 2-2 pitch, but he acknowledged that he still needed to fulfill his role and keep Sano from going deep. Manager Ned Yost agreed.

“We had opportunities before that to end the game,” Yost said. “We ended up hitting the ball right on the nose, a couple times, right at their defenders. We just couldn’t capitalize on some situations that probably wouldn’t have allowed that situation to occur.”

Kansas City had no answer in the bottom of the inning. They spent most of the evening tantalizing their fans at Kauffman Stadium, but never able to break through and grab the lead.

With the loss, the Royals (83-56) have now dropped seven of their last 10. They went 3-6 on this stay at home. The club begins a nine-game road trip on Friday in Baltimore. Kansas City missed a chance to expand their lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the race for home-field advantage throughout the postseason.

Ben Zobrist electrified the crowd with his bat and his legs in the eighth. Trailing by a run, he ripped a 97-mph fastball from Minnesota reliever Trevor May into the right-center gap. Zobrist sprinted to third, with his helmet spilling off his head as he careened into the bag.

Third-base coach Mike Jirschele retrieved the headgear and returned it to Zobrist. Then he sent Zobrist on a fly ball to right off Lorenzo Cain’s bat. Aaron Hicks airmailed the throw home and Zobrist tied the game on the sacrifice fly.

As the game extended past regulation, the Royals failed to capitalize on a series of opportunities. In the ninth inning, rookie speedster Terrance Gore stole second base as a pinch-runner, but waited there for an entire at-bat before Salvador Perez flew out. Instead of potentially scoring the winning run, Gore stole third base in the next at-bat and was stranded at third.

“He’s got the green light,” Yost said. “When he feels like a jump, he takes off.”

The same fate awaited Jarrod Dyson, who swiped two bags in the 10th, but was cut down at the plate on a grounder back to the mound.

Dyson collided with catcher Kurt Suzuki for the out. The Royals requested a challenge to see if Suzuki was blocking the plate, but the umpires ruled the throw from reliever Blaine Boyer drew Suzuki into Dyson’s path. The call stood.

The out incited the crowd into anger. They had been quieted earlier in the evening by 5 1/3 innings of one-run baseball from Twins starter Mike Pelfrey, a Wichita native.

In their second-to-last homestand of the season, the Royals set a franchise record for attendance. With 32,286 fans walking through the gates of Kauffman Stadium on Wednesday, the season total pushed to 2,506,913, which is 29,213 more than the previous record set in 1989. The team has six more games here to increase this mark.

The fans caught the fourth start of Kris Medlen’s comeback from his second Tommy John surgery. Medlen is currently dueling with Danny Duffy for the fourth spot in Kansas City’s playoff rotation. Manager Ned Yost intends to let the competition continue until the end of the season. Medlen held Minnesota to two runs in six innings.

“Overall, it felt pretty good,” Medlen said. “The best I’ve felt with all three pitches working together.”

Medlen sought to rebound from his last outing. The Chicago White Sox bruised Medlen for seven runs on 11 hits. The pounding inflated his ERA as a starter for Kansas City to 6.88. Even so, Yost sought the long view.

“Coming back from that Tommy John and that extended rehab, you knew there would be some ups and downs in it,” Yost said before the game. “But for the most part, he’s been really, really good.”

Facing the White Sox, Medlen felt he lacked command of his curveball. Medlen spun a few quality benders in the opening innings. Joe Mauer grounded out on one to end the first. Eduardo Nunez swung through another to finish the second. Byron Buxton fanned on a curve for the last out in the third.

“Night and day compared to how I felt in my last start,” Medlen said. “I was really trying to work on staying taller, or as tall I can, anyways.”

Medlen retired 15 of the first 16 batters he faced. His lone slip was a fourth-inning walk of Mauer. When the sixth inning began, Medlen had thrown 66 pitches, and a deep run at the team’s first no-hitter since Bret Saberhagen’s gem in 1991 looked, at the very least, possible.

Instead, Medlen surrendered a solo shot to Suzuki. He bashed an 89-mph fastball from Medlen off a billboard just over the left-field fence. The no-no disappeared, and so did the scoreless deadlock.

The Twins manufactured another run in the inning. Aaron Hicks accepted a two-out walk. Brian Dozier singled. Mauer roped a single to left to bring Hicks home.

One swing by Zobrist cut the deficit in half. Pelfrey hung a splitter. Zobrist deposited it in the Twins bullpen. He would use his legs to tie the game in the eighth.

But the Royals still stumbled to another defeat. They will fly to Baltimore on Thursday and rest before Friday’s series with the Orioles. Asked whether his club could benefit from the day off, Yost shrugged.

“Never hurts,” he said.

Source:AP_GLOBALFile:s0012Keyword:BC-BBA--WIDE-BOX-Min-KCDated:23:18 09-09-2015Processed at:23:18 09-Sep-15

Twins 3, Royals 2, 12 innings,

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E: K.Suzuki (2). DP: Minnesota 2, Kansas City 2. LOB: Minnesota 8, Kansas City 8. 3B: Zobrist (3). HR: K.Suzuki (5), Sano (16), Zobrist (12). SB: J.Dyson 2 (25), L.Cain (27), Gore 2 (2). SF: L.Cain. TableStyle: SPORT-BBX_WIDETEAMS3CCI Template:

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HBP: by Duensing (A.Gordon), by Pelfrey (L.Cain). WP: Medlen. Balk: F.Morales.

Umpires: Home, Greg Gibson;First, Chad Fairchild;Second, Pat Hoberg;Third, Jim Joyce.

T: 4:03. A: 32,286 (37,903).

This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 11:15 PM with the headline "Royals end home stand on sour note with 3-2 loss to Twins in 12 innings."