MINNEAPOLIS -- When Hunter Dozier jogged to first base after a pinch-hit walk in the top of the ninth inning, he became the first Royals hitter not named MJ Melendez to get on base against the Twins on Tuesday night.

And when Dozier jogged to second base after Melendez drew his third walk of the game moments later, Dozier became the first Royal on second base.

That was the state of Kansas City’s offense in a 6-3 series-opening loss at Target Field, held hitless through 8 1/3 innings by Minnesota starter Joe Ryan and reliever Jovani Moran until rookie Bobby Witt Jr. knocked a one-out RBI double into left field. His hit ensured the Royals would not be written into the Twins’ history books.

“Bobby’s been that guy here lately,” manager Mike Matheny said. “We talk a lot about Salvy [Perez] in big situations -- that’s a big situation. You don’t want to walk out of here with a zero. Not one in the run column and certainly not one in the hit column. Bobby did a great job of getting us out of that.”

The Royals have been no-hit only twice in their history: Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan recorded the first in Kauffman Stadium history on May 15, 1973, as a member of the Angels and the first of his two no-nos that season. The other came on May 19, 2008, when Jon Lester threw 130 pitches for the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Twins rookie Joe Ryan, no relation to Nolan, carved up the Royals’ offense with seven hitless innings, two walks and nine strikeouts -- much like he’s done all season. In five starts against Kansas City, Ryan has a 1.13 ERA -- three earned runs across 24 innings. The Royals have walked nine times against him and struck out 26.

“He was on tonight,” Witt said. “The fastball is something that you’re like, ‘Oh, seeing it well, seeing it well,’ and then boom, you miss it.”

Ryan kept hitters off balance with his fastball, curveball, changeup and slider, and generated a ton of weak contact, with the Royals averaging an 81 mph exit velocity on the 11 balls put in play.

“What’s going on in the dugout is frustration,” Matheny said. “Guys realizing that it’s embarrassing when you get no-hit. Going up there fighting through their at-bats, but it’s not something you want to have them finish off.”

Meanwhile, the Twins were crushing Royals starter Kris Bubic, who gave up five runs on 10 hits in five innings. Bubic, who is 2-12 this season, hasn’t won a game since beating the Rays on July 24. The lefty threw more curveballs (30) than fastballs (29) on Tuesday, an encouraging sign for the confidence in his breaking ball, but the Twins were aggressive with his fastball, going 6-for-9 on the pitch with two home runs.

“Obviously the margin for error is pretty slim, especially when you got a guy rolling like that,” Bubic said of facing Ryan. “... It’s frustrating when everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong, not even today, just the whole freakin’ year.”

Ryan rolled through the seventh inning, but the Royals forced him to throw 106 pitches. That meant Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was going to turn over the no-hit bid to his bullpen, an unsurprising decision given Ryan’s pitch count.

“They got games to win,” Matheny said. “He’s at [106] pitches after seven. I get it, it’s something very special. But I would have been surprised if he stayed in.”

Moran got through the eighth and struck out Drew Waters in the ninth, bringing up Dozier to pinch-hit for Nicky Lopez. Dozier swung at the first pitch he saw, a changeup, but he then took four more changeups for the walk. Melendez followed suit, working an eight-pitch plate appearance to bring Witt to the plate.

“I was trying to get on anyway I can,” Dozier said. “Been working on things in the cage, and I thought it was a good time to try it out there. I think it helped me see the ball a bit better.”

Witt took notice of Moran’s arsenal and pulled a 1-2 fastball up in the zone into the left-field corner.

“Especially in that situation, you’re going, ‘I want to get a hit, I want to get a hit,’” Witt said. “And they just slowed down the game for everyone, I think. In those situations, the game speeds up. You got to figure out how to slow it down. Seeing what those guys did really helped.

“So we just got to get the bats rolling tomorrow.”