MINNEAPOLIS – When the Royals began their day at Target Field on Sunday, it was not lost on them that a series win was on the line. Without making too much of one game, the importance of this one was mentioned a few times pregame, with the team hoping to end this long, 10-game road trip on the right note.
With a 6-5 win over the Twins, consider the day’s job done, even if it was scary there at the end – and a happy flight home on deck following a .500 (5-5) road trip.
Backed by Noah Cameron’s six strong innings, in which he allowed just three hits and one unearned run with no walks and seven strikeouts, the Royals saw timely hitting and a big hit from Starling Marte – a three-run homer for his first long ball of the season – to cap a four-run fifth inning. They needed every bit of offense they got, as the Twins mounted a comeback in the ninth inning with Josh Bell’s three-run homer off reliever Beck Way and Victor Caratini’s RBI single off Lucas Erceg, who finally recorded the final out with the tying run on second base and winning run on first.
Cameron is on a good roll right now, and Sunday continued that, marking his fourth quality start in his last five outings. He’s allowed just six earned runs in those last five starts (30 innings pitched), and the only mark against him Sunday was an unearned run in the aftermath of Bobby Witt Jr.’s error that gave the Twins an early lead in the second inning.
The Royals tied it two innings later with back-to-back doubles from Vinnie Pasquantino and Nick Loftin, and in the fifth, they put two on base for the middle of their lineup. Witt struck out, but Maikel Garcia responded right away with a go-ahead opposite-field single. This is the offense the Royals have been happy to see lately: Moving the line, picking each other up and playing small ball to stack runs together.
Seeing the slug from Marte was the added – and welcome – bonus. So was adding on a run in the eighth inning on Carter Jensen’s sacrifice fly. The Royals will tell you there’s still plenty of work to be done, but these are all good signs of better baseball.
The Royals started the road trip by getting swept in Texas to extend a losing streak to six games. It was not good, and they were still looking at seven more games in two cities before they got to go back home.
Things started to turn in Cincinnati with a series win. And the Royals really played well in Minnesota with three victories in four games to end their road trip at 5-5. The way the Royals are playing this season, they need to be better than that if they want to make any difference going forward.
But with how difficult the season has been so far for them, they’ll take the .500 trip.