That took forever: Twins 6, Royals 4

Two rain delays and six hours later, the exact same thing happened that usually only takes three hours to happen: the Royals lost.

Minnesota 6, Kansas City 4. We waited through three hours of rain delays. I stayed up until 1:00 am to write this. At least Brandon Maurer’s ERA got lower.

The Twins jumped on Heath Fillmyer early, scoring two runs in the second inning on an RBI double by Miguel Sano, because of course, and then another on a single by Joe Mauer, who is the most uninteresting person in baseball.

Mini-rant here: I have been around to watch Joe Mauer hit five thousand singles against the Royals in my lifetime. Five thousand. He’s had 8,000 plate appearances against the Royals in his career: 5,000 singles, 2,997 walks, and 3 outs. You may have to fact-check that one, but I checked like an hour ago and I’m pretty sure that’s right. Mauer is the Panera Bread of Major League Baseball. He is the most bland, uninteresting player of all-time. His singles are completely forgettable. Think about it. This is a man with 2,068 career hits - do you remember a freaking single one of them? Of course you don’t. He’s the best forgettable player in the history of the sport. And I’m tired of watching him hit boring singles against the Royals.

So anyway, it’s 3-0 Twins and Fillmyer is getting lit up, and then the Royals make their comeback. Salvador Perez hit a two-run homer to tighten the score, because this game was at Target Field so of course he did. That’s 19 on the year for Perez, who is putting together a 2012 Billy Butler season in the sense that the homers are way up and the doubles are way down and everything is likely going to revert to the mean next year.

Following a rain delay that took almost two hours, the Royals continued their hot streak by coming out swinging in the fifth inning. Mondesi, Merrifield, Gordon, and Perez put together four straight hits, with Gordon getting the game-tying RBI on a single to center. With the bases loaded, Lucas Duda cranked a sacrifice fly to right field to put KC up 4-3...

... but Brian Flynn came in and promptly fell through the ceiling by giving up the two runs right back. He gave up another one in the sixth inning to make it 6-4, Twins. Then there was another rain delay. Then they cancelled the postgame fireworks because it was too late and the fans booed very loud and very long. Then the game ended without any other interesting things happening.

Fillmyer was knocked out after the rain delay, so he went just three innings and threw 70 pitches. Flynn got the well-deserved loss; he’s 2-4.

Adalberto Mondesi, correctly starting at shortstop because event a blind squirrel like Ned Yost finds a nut every once in awhile, became the first Royal since 2013 Eric Hosmer to steal 10 bases and be less than 24 years old. Alex Gordon had two hits. Whit Merrifield had three. Alcides Escobar had none, partly because he didn’t play, but also partly because he wouldn’t have had any even if he had played.

The Royals are 34-75, back to a season-worst 41 games under .500. They hand the ball to Burch Smith tomorrow evening. Sure, that’ll get you back on the right track. Spoiler alert: Joe Mauer will get 23 more boring singles and the Royals will lose.