The Minnesota Twins survived a ninth-inning rally to earn a 6-5 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday’s game started in a historic fashion when Nelson Cruz drove in Josh Donaldson with an RBI double. The run, which was the two millionth in MLB history, gave the Twins an early lead that was doubled on a Trevor Larnach home run in the second inning.
Trevor Larnach: future household name. @Twins | #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/YU0zYO2qni
— FanDuel Sports Network North (@FanDuelSN_NOR) May 29, 2021
The Royals tied the game with a two-run home run from Salvador Perez in the third inning but the Twins took the lead in the fourth on an RBI single from Rob Refsnyder. After Mitch Garver scored on a wild pitch, the Twins had a 4-2 lead in support of J.A. Happ.
Happ had a solid afternoon, allowing two runs over five innings but that handed things to the Twins bullpen. The Twins got an extra run to work with when Garver scored on an error in the sixth but the Royals made a charge beginning in the eighth inning.
Kansas City got a run off Hansel Robles in the eighth before Refsnyder added an insurance run with an RBI single in the bottom half of the inning. The run came in handy with Taylor Rogers on the mound as Raul Mondesi hit a two-run homer to make it a 6-5 game.
Although Rogers had a rocky outing, Rogers struck out Andrew Benintendi and Hanser Alberto to secure the victory.
The Twins (21-30) will go for the series victory when they host the Royals on Sunday afternoon.
