The Minnesota Twins may have dropped game one of their series against the Kansas City Royals and three-straight in total, but they avenged that loss on Friday with a big 7-2 victory on Saturday. In the morning game of the double header, Minnesota had steady offense with stellar third and fifth innings to take the big win, giving Scott Diamond the victory.
Diamond was stellar, giving up two runs off of six hits over eight innings on the mound. He had four strikeouts against two walks and is now 7-3 on the season. Glen Perkins had the save, giving up one hit in the ninth inning to seal the deal. Jonathan Sanchez of the Royals was handed the loss, and he was shelled by definition.
He lasted just over four innings and gave up ten hits with six walks while striking out four. He allowed six runs, two of which came in the third and four of which came in the fifth. Trevor Plouffe doubled to deep left field to get the scoring started, bringing Joe Mauer in and advancing Josh Willingham to third base. Ryan Doumit then came up and scored Willingham with a sacrifice fly.
Brian Dozier reached on a single in the fifth, scoring Doumit and advancing Darin Mastroianni to second. Alexi Casilla doubled to deep left, scoring both Dozier and Mastroianni. Finally, Denard Span scored Casilla with a single. Plouffe hit a homerun in the eighth inning to add the insurance run. Yuniesky Betancourt had both RBIs for the Royals, in the sixth and eighth innings.
Game two of the doubleheader is set to begin at 7:10 p.m. eastern, with Cole DeVries taking the mound for Minnesota against Luke Hochevar for Kansas City.
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