The Royals’ winning streak ends at five games with 5-4 home loss to Minnesota Twins
.jpg "Kansas City Royals’ Jarrod Dyson beats the tag by Minnesota Twins third baseman Josh Donaldson to advance to third on a ground out hit into by Jorge Soler during the ninth inning of a baseball game Saturday, June 5, 2021, in Kansas City, Mo. The Twins won 5-4. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)")
Jarrod Dyson’s speed swung the pendulum in the Kansas City Royals’ favor and led to the decisive run in the opening game of the series, and his aggressive mentality extended the game on Saturday afternoon.
Ultimately, Dyson’s speed wasn’t enough this time as the Royals saw their win streak snapped at five games after a 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins in front of an announced 21,574 at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals (29-27) can take three of the four games in the series with a win on Sunday afternoon.
The game ended when Michael A. Taylor hit a bullet — it came off the bat traveling 100.9 mph — right at Twins shortstop Andrelton Simmons. Dyson had broken for home as soon as the ball was hit.
Dyson stopped in his tracks when the ball was caught, but he had no chance to retreat to third. Simmons threw to third baseman Josh Donaldson and doubled Dyson up for the final out.
“Right there, we’re (going) on contact,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “We’re using his legs. Taylor’s trying to do the right thing, drive the ball to the middle. You’re taking a gamble every time you do that because you’re going to be subject to a double play. It doesn’t happen often, but in situations like that you’ve got to take your chances.”
For the second time in three games, the teams played at a constant back-and-forth pace. The game featured four ties/lead changes before the Royals had Dyson on third as the tying run in the ninth inning.
The first Royals batter of the ninth inning, Kelvin Gutierrez, lined a double off the center-field wall. That set the table for Dyson to enter the game as a pinch-runner. He stepped on the field representing the tying run, already in scoring position with no outs.
The next batter, Jorge Soler, hit a ground ball that Simmons didn’t field cleanly. But Simmons recovered quickly and threw to first in time to get Soler. First baseman Miguel Sano then rifled the ball to second base in an attempt to catch Dyson returning to the bag.
Sano’s throw caromed away from second baseman Jorge Polanco. Even though it didn’t get that far away, Dyson made the frantic dash for third base. Simmons hustled to the ball and made a great off-balance throw to third.
Third base umpire Manny Gonzalez called Dyson out. However, upon replay review, it could be seen that Dyson’s hand clearly got to the bag before Donaldson placed the tag on his arm.
“He made it. It was a good play,” Matheny said. “You get him there with one out, that’s ideal. That’s where we want to be. The last thing that we want these guys doing, the way that we play, is to be tentative and afraid to make a mistake. Trust your instincts. Trust your skillset. And his skillset is using his legs.”
That put the tying run on third base with one out before the game-ending double play.
The Twins scored all five of their runs on home runs that came against Royals starting pitcher Mike Minor (4-3). Minor allowed five runs on seven hits and one walk. He struck out five.
“The three home runs obviously killed me,” Minor said. “You take one of those back, you take two of them (back), it’s a different game. But that’s what killed us today.”
Ryan Jeffers’ second home run of the season, a two-run smash on the first pitch fastball from Minor, came with two outs in the second inning and gave the Twins a 2-0 advantage.
The Royals answered on Whit Merrifield’s bases-loaded two-run single in the bottom half of the inning that tied the score 2-2.
The Twins grabbed the lead again in the top of the third on a solo homer to left field by Kyle Garlick.
They were in position to add to the lead later in the inning after Nelson Cruz walked and stole second — his first stolen base since May 12, 2018. Cruz then attempted to score on a single on the ground into center field by Alex Kirilloff, but Royals center fielder Taylor charged, gathered the ball and uncorked a throw to the plate in time to throw out Cruz.
“I thought, beforehand, that I was going to be a little bit more aggressive based on the runner,” Taylor said. “After the ball is hit, you just try to make a quick decision on whether or not you’re going to take a shot at it. Then from there, it’s for me just about keeping the ball down and giving (catcher Salvador Perez) a chance.”
MLB Statcast data measured Taylor’s throw at 98 mph, the fastest on an outfield assist in the majors this season. It was Taylor’s third outfield assist of the season.
Andrew Benintendi’s fifth-inning two-run homer put the Royals back in front 4-3. Benintendi clobbered a 2-0 fastball 411 feet to center field for his sixth home run of the season.
With a runner on third and two outs in the sixth, Sano swung the lead back to the Twins for the third and final time with a mammoth 449-foot two-run blast that smacked off the LED video board on the side of the Royals Hall of Fame.
“I think that at-bat before we threw the same get-me-over slider. Strike one. Curveball, strike two. Then changeup. Strike three. Walk back to the dugout,” Minor said. “Then that time, get-me-over slider and he hit it and was probably pretty happy with actually making solid contact for once. He hit a long way. It was a two-run home run and killed us right there.”
This story was originally published June 5, 2021 at 6:22 PM.
