Royals avoid sweep by beating Twins, 8-6

After disappointing mothers everywhere by getting destroyed on Mother’s Day, the Royals came through for the dads out there, beating the Twins, 8-6.

Also, these guys are the best in the world at losing a ton of games but not getting swept very often.

Second inning: Jorge Bonifacio got his first hit since re-joining the team by reaching on an infield single, scoring Jorge Soler. Martin Maldonado and Whit Merrifield also hit run-scoring singles in the frame, giving the Royals a 3-0 lead.

Minnesota would score two runs to climb back, but a two-run seventh inning helped the Royals get their cushion back. Billy Hamilton reached on a sacrifice bunt, driving in his seventh run of the year. He has more than 190 ABs and exactly 8 RBIs, which feels impossible. The reason Bubba Starling is still in AAA is because he couldn’t possibly do any better than that, right?

Other runs: Kansas City scored on an error that put Adalberto Mondesi aboard, Nelson Cruz homered for Minnesota, and Bonifacio rocked a double to left-center to make it 6-3. Maldonado hit a double of his own to trade places with Bonifacio. Hamilton somehow got another RBI single. They resembled a competent team! How great was that!

In all seriousness, it was neat to see Maldonado have a good game on Father’s Day. He had three hits and drove in two while wearing a tie as a tribute to his father. It was unusual but neat. It made for good timing for his best game of the year.

The pitching for the Royals was interesting. Jake Junis started, but he didn’t get very far. Junis needed 92 pitches to get 11 outs. He allowed eight baserunners in 3.2 innings, striking out five, but allowing two runs to raise his ERA to 5.33. Jorge Lopez came in and gave up a bunch of baseunners, but Jake Diekman got out of a bases loaded, one-out jam.

Brad Boxberger came in and poured lighter fluid on an open fire by putting four people on base to start the inning, allowing two runs to score. Wily Peralta came in and put out that fire. Ian Kennedy got the save after 30+ pitches. The whole thing took four hours plus to complete. It’s amazing that they held on.

Honestly, the Royals are very fortunate. They were out-hit by Minnesota and got the Twins to leave the bases loaded three different times.

The record is 23-48. This is a team that has won exactly 1 of its last 20 series, but they’ve only been swept twice in that time period. That is absolutely preposterous and I have no idea how they’ve managed to do that.

This week: they head to Seattle in search of their first road series win.