Lorenzo Cain carries Royals to a 7-4 victory over the Twins

On the final night of April, a Saturday in Seattle, Lorenzo Cain’s batting average hovered just below .220. His production level had waned. His swing was off-kilter. After the best season of his career in 2015, his frustration level had maxed out.

Cain called it the worst slump of his career, and the struggles of the Royals’ No. 3 hitter seeped into the rest of the roster. The offense managed just 77 runs in April. The scoring drought begat a clubwide funk that persisted for weeks.

Tuesday night in Minneapolis, more than three weeks later, the offensive questions subsided for nine innings. Cain and the Royals’ offense spent another game getting healthy against a beleaguered Minnesota Twins pitching staff. Cain rapped out four hits, matching a career high. The Royals took to a 7-4 decision inside a quiet and lethargic Target Field.

After two nights in Minnesota, the once-suspect Royals offense has pounded out 17 runs on 30 hits, helping clinch a fourth straight series victory. They can complete the sweep with a win in today’s 12:10 p.m. finale.

“We know what kind of talent we have in here,” Cain said moments after celebrating in a darkened clubhouse with a green strobe light dancing off the ceiling. “I feel like it was just a matter of time for us to just click together, swing the bats together and get hot at the same time. I feel like we’ve done that the last week or so. We just got to keep going.”

On a pleasant evening in the Upper Midwest, the Royals, 24-21, offered more bloodshed, turning the Twins into a divisional punching bag and beating them for the 14th time in 18 games. The record includes a 5-0 mark this season. The Royals accomplished the feat with starters Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas out of the lineup for the second straight day.

Gordon is expected to miss close to four weeks with a broken scaphoid bone in his right wrist. Moustakas is day to day with a bruise on his right knee.

It did not matter Tuesday night. The Royals, once 17-19 and reeling after a run of quiet offense and inconsistent starting pitching, have won seven of their last nine games.

The Royals have averaged 4.6 runs per game in that stretch, which perhaps masks the larger problem: They still have scored the second-fewest runs in the American League — 169 — behind only the woeful Twins, who with Tuesday’s loss dropped to 11-34.

The trends, however, are pointing in the right direction. Cain has found the reliable stroke that carried him to a career season in 2015. By late Tuesday night, the Royals were just two games behind the first-place Chicago White Sox and a half-game behind the Cleveland Indians in a bunched-up AL Central.

“We’re a long way from where we want to be: the playoffs, but it will come,” Cain said.

One night after stroking a career-high five hits, catcher Salvador Perez opened the scoring Tuesday with a towering home run to center field in the top of the second inning. The Royals’ offense seized control, scoring one run in the third inning and three in the fourth.

Cain was in the middle of the flurry, finishing 4 for 5 with two RBIs. He is batting .368 in May, raising his season average to .296.

“I guess I’ve been swinging the bat a lot better than I was early in the year,” Cain said. “That’s why it’s a long season. You just got to keep battling, keep scrapping, keep fighting, and hopefully things turn around. It has as of late, but I got to keep going.”

Whit Merrifield finished 2 for 5 with two doubles, logging another start at second base. Right fielder Paulo Orlando has turned into a May version of Ted Williams, piling up two more hits and raising his season average to .406. The offense battered Twins starter Ervin Santana, a former Royal, for six runs and nine hits in 3  2/3 innings.

The offensive output was plenty for Royals starter Edinson Volquez, who allowed four runs (two earned) in 6  2/3 innings.

Volquez was not at his sharpest, but he sought to complete seven innings. He was stuck with two unearned runs when Orlando misplayed a ball in right field during the Twins’ two-run fourth inning. He weathered the heat in the middle innings, working around a jam in the fifth and lasting into the seventh.

By the end, Volquez had thrown 103 pitches. With two out in the seventh, Royals manager Ned Yost summoned Luke Hochevar to record the final out.

Joakim Soria tossed a scoreless eighth, lowering his ERA to 3.47. Wade Davis recorded his 12th save after loading the bases with nobody out in the ninth.

“I was just having a little trouble there early, timing-wise,” Davis said afterward. “It felt really good, but I had a tough time finding a comfortable rhythm, I guess, to get it in the strike zone, but I found it eventually.”

The final moments offered a hint of drama. In the Royals dugout, Yost’s heart rate barely moved.

“When he has his back up against the wall, it’s kind of like, ‘That’s it,’ ” Yost said of Davis.

Davis restored order, striking out Eduardo Nunez and Joe Mauer before coaxing a fly ball from Miguel Sano.

“We feel like we’re back on track,” Yost said. “We got guys swinging the bat really well. So we knew that it was just a matter of time before we could start bunching some wins together.”

Rustin Dodd: 816-234-4937, @rustindodd. Download True Blue, The Star’s free Royals app.

Royals 7, Twins 4

a-walked for Centeno in the 9th.

E: Orlando (1), Nunez (6), Centeno (1). LOB: Kansas City 7, Minnesota 8. 2B: Merrifield 2 (3), Cain (5), Orlando (5), Arcia (2), E.Escobar (6). HR: Perez (7), off E.Santana. RBIs: A.Escobar (13), Cain 2 (25), Perez 2 (24), Mauer (13), E.Escobar (8). SB: Cain (6).

Runners left in scoring position: Kansas City 5 (A.Escobar, Hosmer 3, Morales); Minnesota 4 (Sano 2, Grossman, Centeno). RISP: Kansas City 5 for 15; Minnesota 3 for 10. Runners moved up: Dyson, Hosmer 2, A.Escobar. GIDP: Hosmer, Cuthbert, E.Escobar. DP: Kansas City 1 (Hosmer, A.Escobar); Minnesota 2 (Mauer, E.Escobar), (Tonkin, Nunez, Mauer).

Holds: Hochevar (9), Soria (7). Inherited runners-scored: Hochevar 1-0, Tonkin 2-0, Abad 1-0. HBP: Volquez (Arcia). WP: E.Santana.

Umpires: Home, Mark Carlson; First, Jeff Kellogg; Second, John Tumpane; Third, Alan Porter. Time: 3:07. Att: 23,541.

This story was originally published May 24, 2016 at 10:44 PM with the headline "Lorenzo Cain carries Royals to a 7-4 victory over the Twins."