Kansas City Royals bullpen stands tall, Edward Olivares sparks pivotal inning vs. Twins
Brad Keller had a shaky start, but he fought his way through five to earn his fifth win of the season, while the bullpen contingent of Kyle Zimmer, Scott Barlow and Greg Holland combined for four no-hit innings to get the Kansas City Royals out of Minnesota on a high note.
A four-run fifth inning and stellar relief pitching paved the way to the Royals 6-3 win over the Minnesota Twins in front of an announced 17,923 in the finale of a three-game series at Target Field on Sunday afternoon.
The win gave the Royals (25-26) their first series victory at Target Field since Sept. 1-3, 2017. That snapped a streak of eight consecutive series losses in Minnesota.
The Royals finished their road trip 3-3. They’ll play at home on Monday night, the first game at Kauffman Stadium with no capacity restrictions since the end of the 2019 season.
“A big win,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “You try to look at them all as the most important one of the season, but once you look back after a series and after a road trip, you realize this was a really good opportunity, especially inside the division, to come in here and take two of three.”
Edward Olivares, recalled from Triple-A Omaha before the game, went 2 for 4 in his season debut for the Royals. His first hit of the day started the four-run fifth inning.
Jarrod Dyson (2 for 4) and Whit Merrifield (2 for 5) also had two hits apiece. Hunter Dozier homered and drove in two runs. Andrew Benintendi (1 for 3, sacrifice fly) also drove in a pair of runs.
Keller (5-4) bounced back from walking three batters in the first inning, including one with the bases loaded to give the Twins (21-31) their first run of the day.
“That was the thought process right there, just minimize,” Keller said. “Obviously, I don’t want to walk a run in. I felt like I made some pretty good pitches there. I wanted to stay down, attack down in the zone. I was just missing. I had to make an adjustment. … I made the adjustment of throwing sinkers and getting back in the zone. It kind of bought me a few more innings.”
The Royals’ four-run fifth inning put Keller in position to get the win. They had five singles, a walk and a sacrifice fly. The most pivotal play of the inning may have been an errant throw on a pickoff attempt by Twins pitcher Matt Shoemaker.
With runners on first and second, Shoemaker’s throw to first had the trail runner Merrifield out by several feet. However, the throw was in the dirt and Merrifield returned safely. Meanwhile, the lead runner Dyson advanced to third.
Instead of there being two outs and a runner on second with the Royals up 3-2, Carlos Santana’s walk loaded the bases and Benintendi hit a sacrifice fly to center field to drive in the fourth run of the inning. The fifth run came on a Salvador Perez RBI single.
The fourth run loomed large an inning later when the Twins pushed a run across in the fifth.
Keller scratched his way through five innings and held the Twins to three runs on five hits and four walks. He also struck out six and threw 98 pitches.
Zimmer retired the side in order in the sixth, but he ran into trouble in the seventh with two walks in the first three batters.
That’s when Barlow got dropped into the highest-stress situations of the game with one out and two men on.
The Twins brought the go-ahead run to the plate twice in the seventh in the form of their biggest sluggers, cleanup hitter Nelson Cruz and No. 5 hitter Miguel Sano. Matheny described that situation as a “game changer.”
Barlow struck out both Cruz, who entered the day batting .361 with 16 homers 39 RBIs and 28 runs scored against the Royals since 2019 (30 games), and Sano as they flailed at a curveball and slider, respectively.
“It really just boils down to executing whatever is kind of working that day,” Barlow said. “Today, the slider. I definitely threw a bunch of those, but it felt really good today. That part of the lineup, going through game plans and kind of strategizing how to approach those guys, it kind of matched up today with the slider. It felt good and it worked.”
The next inning, Barlow hit the first batter. He then struck out Rob Refsynder and then faced pinch hitter Mitch Garver, who entered the day batting .391 with six extra-base hits including two homers in his previous eight games.
Garver laid off a 3-2 slider low and outside for a walk, but Barlow struck out the next batter Andrelton Simmons on three pitches and got an inning-ending ground ball to first base to strand both runners.
The Twins left 10 men on base in the game.
“I’m not necessarily trying to walk him,” Barlow said of Garver. “That last slider I’m trying to make it good and down. It’s never going to be perfect all the time. It did seem to work out, having that walk and going after Simmons the next guy, but you’re never anticipating a walk unless you’re told this is probably a good time to walk somebody or pitch around if a guy is really hot.”
Dozier’s home run, an upper deck blast, came in the top of the ninth to give the Royals a three-run advantage. Holland retired the side in order in the ninth against the Twins No. 2-4 hitters, Josh Donaldson, Alex Kirilloff and Cruz, to earn his third save of the season.
This story was originally published May 30, 2021 at 4:51 PM.
