KANSAS CITY -- In the first two of their four-game set against Cleveland this week, the Royals have had to go to their bullpen early to hold a slim lead.

And in both games, Cleveland put together big innings against Kansas City relievers.

Josh Staumont allowed three runs in the eighth inning of Tuesday night’s 7-3 loss at Kauffman Stadium, as the Royals dropped their third straight and first two of the seven-game homestand.

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“Our bullpen has done such an incredible job this season getting us out of messes, and we’re going to have times where different components of our game pick up other guys that are carrying us,” manager Mike Matheny said. “We need to keep making plays and we’re going to have to also keep adding on offensively.”

Kansas City had a 3-0 lead going into the sixth on Michael A. Taylor’s single in the second, a bizarre play in the third that resulted in Whit Merrifield scoring on Salvador Perez’s RBI single and Perez’s 460-foot solo homer in the fifth.

But starter Mike Minor, who had a no-hitter going through four innings, loaded the bases with one out in the sixth. Up to that point, the lefty had thrown mainly fastballs -- 39 percent of his 93 pitches, according to Statcast -- and mixed in a good balance of sliders and changeups to induce soft contact, which Minor wanted to do to try to go deeper into a game than he has so far this season.

“I felt like my other games, I was throwing a lot of sliders and curveballs, trying to get strikeouts and swing and misses,” Minor said, “and it looks all sexy and everything, but when you don’t go deep in games -- and I still didn’t go deep tonight, but I feel like I did a better job, and that it was something to build off of.”

With the bases loaded, though, Matheny began to execute his plan of bringing high-leverage relievers in for those spots. It just didn’t work out quite as planned.

Greg Holland got the ground ball and potential double-play ball he wanted off Franmil Reyes, but Nicky Lopez misread the hop as it bounced into left field for an error and two runs scored. Then, Harold Ramirez lined the tying single to left field. All three runs were earned and charged to Minor, who struck out three and walked three in 5 1/3 innings.

“It’s a very, very tough play on that high chopper,” Matheny said. “It’s a shame. We have a guy come in and get the ground ball, and you want softer contact, and hopefully it’s enough for us to turn two. But obviously when it chopped as high as it did, it turned into a very tough backhand play.”

Cleveland was able to jump on Staumont in the eighth. He got an 0-2 count on Reyes with two curveballs that Reyes swung over, so Staumont stuck with the curveball and threw four straight resulting in a one-out walk.

“I’m not throwing him a strike with two strikes,” Staumont said. “At all. There was nobody on. … Challenging him with four, I probably could have made them better pitches, but at the same time, we had an approach and we stuck with it. At the end of the day, you got to believe that what you did was the right thing in the moment, and I do.”

A wild pitch put Reyes on second to score on Ramirez’s go-ahead double, and Josh Naylor’s single gave Cleveland insurance runs before Jake Bauers’ pinch-hit homer off Tyler Zuber later in the inning.

“You’re talking about a very good hitter that’s locked in right now in Reyes, and came after him with a lot of breaking balls,” Matheny said. “I think after that [Staumont] had a little bit of trouble getting that fastball dialed back in. He has been fantastic, and the breaking ball has been a weapon that he needs to go to often. Just kind of lost it there for a little bit and then had trouble getting back into the zone.”

This early in the season, the Royals aren’t worried about this current three-game losing streak, even after their stellar April. They knew they would be tested, especially against American League Central teams, and they know they can’t have it spiral on them.

“It’s super easy to pick apart when it doesn’t go well, but we do that and get the outs, everyone’s slapping people on the back,” Staumont said. “It’s baseball. We’re going to show up tomorrow and we’re going to compete like we did today. There’s 162 games for a reason.

“You’re going to have ups and downs, but when you zoom out, it’s a lot smaller. One game doesn’t make or break the season.”