Recapping the Minnesota Twins vs. Kansas City Royals series

In a division where there is a legitimate four-team race for the title, every single game against your rivals is crucial even when the season is young. This is especially true for the AL Central, a division that saw three teams go to the postseason a year ago. Almost every team in the division (not you, White Sox) is seen as a playoff contender that is ready to win now.

The teams that face off for four games in Commradio's series of the week are the Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals, two of the squads that are built to try and take the AL Central crown. Despite this, neither team has been off to a good start with the Twins going 3-6 in their first nine games and the Royals only a game better at 4-5. This will be a huge series for one team to hopefully catch fire while leaving the other with an uphill climb to try and catch up.

Recent history between these two teams has been all Minnesota as they have won the season series three years in a row, going 28-17 against Kansas City in that span. However, most of that success has come at home as they have struggled at Kauffman Stadium the past three seasons, going 9-12 and dropping four in a row in Kansas City going into this series.

The Twins were the only AL Central team besides the White Sox to miss October last season, while the Royals snuck into the wild card to make the postseason for the first time since they won it all in 2015. Without a lot of recent success, both teams will be battling each other hard this week in an attempt to inch closer to the tiebreaker that could potentially be the difference between going for it all or going home in the fall.

Game 1

The struggles of Twins pitcher Simeon Woods Richardson started from the first batter he faced in this one. Jonathan India led off the home half of the first with a double to center field that bounced off of Byron Buxton's glove. With one out, Vinnie Pasquantino drove India in with a bloop double into left field to give the Royals the early 1-0 lead.

The Twins then responded with a two out RBI double by Willi Castro in the top of the second to score Ty France, but before they could enjoy their quick response, the Royals would score two in the bottom half of the inning with an RBI infield single by Kyle Isbel to score MJ Melendez from third. They would also get a productive groundout by Bobby Witt Jr. to score Maikel Garcia to make it 3-1 Royals.

The scoring would stop there until the sixth inning when Kyle Isbel capped off a three-hit night with a solo shot to right field with Jonathan India on deck. On a full count, the umpire called Woods Richardson for a pitch clock violation, awarding a walk to India and upsetting Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, who argued and got ejected from the game.

Royals starter Michael Lorenzen tossed a quality start, going six innings and only allowing one run. The Twins would get a run in the ninth off of closer Carlos Estevez, but it would be too little, too late as the Royals would hang on to win 4-2.

Game 2

A good, old-fashioned pitchers' duel between Royals starter Cole Ragans and Twins starter Pablo Lopez ensued on dollar dog night at Kauffman Stadium.

After striking out four batters in the first two innings, including stranding a leadoff double by Carlos Correa in the second, Ragans struck out 11 batters in six innings of work, only allowing one run.

Lopez would go 4.2 innings, only allowing three hits, and striking out six. Unfortunately for the Twins, their play in the field wouldn't be nearly as sharp as their pitching, and it ended up costing them the game.

After a Bobby Witt Jr. double with one out in the fourth, Twins second baseman Mickey Gasper couldn't come up with a routine ground ball hit by Vinnie Pasquantino. Salvador Perez then came up and smoked a ball on the ground to third, to which Jose Miranda made an excellent diving play to get Pasquantino out at second, and Witt scored to make it 1-0 Royals. That would've been the last out of the inning had it not been for the earlier error.

The Twins would score in the top of the fifth to tie the game, but their defensive woes would continue in the eighth as reliever Griffin Jax made a throwing error to first, allowing Witt to get all the way to third on what should've been another routine groundout.

Pasquantino would hit a grounder to give the Royals a 2-1 lead, and they would win the game by that score, clinching at least a split, and extending their home winning streak over Minnesota to six.

Game 3

Game three of the series was a complete 180 from the first two as this game was all Twins. After two costly errors and three total errors in game two, the Twins' defense was back on track Wednesday. In the bottom of the third, Cavan Biggio hit a one-hop grounder right at second baseman Edouard Julien, who made the clean pick to get the first out and keep starter Joe Ryan perfect through seven batters.

Ryan would go on to have an excellent game, only allowing two hits in seven shutout innings on only 85 pitches. Then with a runner on first and two outs, third baseman Willi Castro made a diving stop on a hard hit ball down the left field line and proceeded to get up and make a perfect throw across the diamond to keep the game scoreless.

These two plays helped to wake the Twins’ offense up as in the top of the fourth, Carlos Correa and Trevor Larnach worked back-to-back walks against Seth Lugo. With two outs, Julien hit a single to right, driving in Correa for the first run of the night with Larnach getting caught in a run down between second and third to end the inning.

In the bottom half of the fourth, Bobby Witt Jr. hit a leadoff double and with one out, Salvador Perez lined out to center and with Witt attempting to steal third, Harrison Bader gunned him out at second to end the inning, continuing the Twins’ strong defensive performance.

The Twins would make it 2-0 in the top of the sixth on Lugo’s 108th pitch of the game as Ty France singled into right field with runners on the corners. They would score again in the top of the eighth with a leadoff home run by Matt Wallner to make it 3-0, then another leadoff homer in the top of the ninth to cap off a three-hit night by France to officially put the game out of reach. With a 4-0 shutout victory, the Twins would look to salvage a split in the final game.

Game 4

The Royals were looking to win the four-game set to be half a game behind the Tigers for the division lead and win back-to-back series for the first time in 2025. The Twins were looking to salvage what was thought to be a hopeless series after the first two games.

Twins’ Bailey Ober and Royals’ Michael Wacha were the starters in the windy afternoon showdown, both in desperate need of a good outing as their first two starts didn’t go so hot, and they got exactly what they needed.

Ober tossed six strong innings with the only run coming off an RBI single in the first by Salvador Perez. Wacha threw 5.1 innings of two-run ball with the second run coming after he was pulled as Ryan Jeffers hit an RBI single off of reliever John Schreiber that snuck under the glove of second baseman Maikel Garcia.

With both starters out of the game, the Twins would be clinging to a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning. After hitting Freddy Fermin with a pitch and allowing a single to Drew Waters, Twins reliever Cole Sands would proceed to give up the lead, allowing the tying run to score on a Jonathan India single and letting the Royals take the lead with a sac fly by Bobby Witt Jr.

The Royals bullpen would shut the door with Schreiber, Daniel Lynch IV, Lucas Erceg, and Carlos Estevez combining for 3.2 shutout innings in a 3-2 Royals victory which was not in any way influenced by home plate umpire Mark Ripperger, as according to Umpire Scorecards he called every single ball and strike correctly. Only the second such instance since 2015 when it was first tracked.

The Royals take three out of four and will bring their promising 7-6 record to Cleveland, while the Twins will go back home to face the division-leading Tigers, hoping to dig themselves out of their 4-9 hole.

Although they would’ve liked to do some damage this week, this series is not the end of the world for the Twins. It is only April after all, and these two teams still play nine more games against each other this season, with six of them coming at Target Field in Minnesota.

The next time these squads face-off will be the weekend of May 23 at Target Field, and it will be highly intriguing to see where these two teams stand then as opposed to now.

Brady Welsh is a first-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email bdw5435@psu.edu.