MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Needing a big hit, the Minnesota Twins instead turned a little tapper back to the mound into big trouble for the Kansas City Royals.

Pitcher Wade Davis made a wild flip home on a comebacker in the eighth inning and the Twins rallied past the Royals 4-3 Sunday for a three-game sweep.

“Had the play right there in front of me, just didn’t make it,” Davis said.

A madcap sequence put the Twins ahead and a crazy play ended it, too.

With two outs and none on in the ninth, Mike Moustakas popped a ball straight up. As he stood to watch it in the batter’s box, catcher Kurt Suzuki tripped over him, resulting in an interference call for the final out.

“That’s always on the hitter,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “That’s not going to be on the defender. He has a right to catch the ball.”

After the Royals scored three times in the eighth for a 3-2 lead, reliever Aaron Crow (0-1) walked two Minnesota batters to start the bottom half.

Davis struck out Joe Mauer, but Trevor Plouffe walked to load the bases. Chris Herrmann then hit a grounder back to the mound and Davis, hoping to begin an easy double play, hesitated briefly after getting the ball out of his glove.

Davis’ toss sailed past catcher Salvador Perez. Pedro Florimon scored the tying run and Dozier slid home under Perez’s return throw to Davis, who was a step late covering the plate.

“You got to be aggressive, you can’t lose that,” Dozier said. “I saw the throw. I saw Davis just hanging out a good 10 yards away from the thing, so might as well take a shot.”

The lapse by Davis compounded an already frustrating series for the Royals. Kansas City was outscored 21-5 in the sweep.

“I got frustrated and made a mental mistake by not being there,” Davis said. “It’s unacceptable.”

Casey Fien (1-0) got one out and Glen Perkins posted his third save.

The Royals have lost their first five road games this season, managing just nine runs.

“I think everybody’s trying to do too much right now,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “When you go in a slump everybody tries to do more, and that’s only natural for a team when you’re having trouble scoring runs.”

Josmil Pinto hit his third homer in the seventh inning to give the Twins a 2-0 lead.

Twins starter Kevin Correia cruised through seven innings before running into trouble in the eighth. He allowed three runs on six hits in seven innings.

Eric Hosmer’s RBI double capped the Royals’ three-run eighth.

Not wearing sleeves despite a gametime temperature of 42 degrees, Jason Vargas held the Twins to two runs on five hits over seven innings for his third straight quality start this season.

That type of outing would have been more than enough last season, when the Royals won 15 of 19 from Minnesota. But the Twins now have the upper hand to start 2014.

— Associated Press —

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — After adding Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes in the offseason, the Twins expected their rotation to be better.

Instead, the offense has been the biggest turnaround for Minnesota.

Joe Mauer hit his first home run of the season, Brian Dozier connected for his fourth and Nolasco earned his initial win with the Twins in a 7-1 victory Saturday over the Kansas City Royals.

“I feel like, one through nine, everybody today had at least three hard-hit balls each, and that’s a tell-tale sign an offense is clicking,” said Dozier, who tied for the AL lead in homers. “Been doing that for the past week now, so everything is starting to click as a team right now.”

A day after getting his first RBI of the year, Mauer hit a three-run shot against starter James Shields (0-2). Dozier had a leadoff homer for Minnesota, which has scored the second-most runs in the American League.

Nolasco (1-1) showed why the Twins signed him to a $49 million, four-year contract to steady their rotation.

The right-hander gave up five runs in each of his first two outings for his new team, but was on top of his game Saturday in his first home start for Minnesota. Nolasco went eight innings and allowed five hits with four strikeouts.

“I wish I could say I’m going to go eight every time,” Nolasco said. “This level is very difficult and you can never count yourself out no matter how good or bad you’re doing. I had two bad starts, but my mentality is still like I could do something like today.”

While the rotation was addressed in the offseason, it was Minnesota’s lineup that figured to keep the Twins near the bottom of the AL Central again. Instead, Dozier has been a power source in the leadoff spot, and Minnesota has received big production from a middle of the order that includes Trevor Plouffe, Chris Colabello and Jason Kubel.

Making the transition full-time to first base this season, Mauer was slow to come around with the bat. Kansas City’s first trip to Minnesota was the perfect remedy, though. In his career, Mauer has hit .338 against the Royals with 11 homers and 95 RBIs. He’s also hit .350 (12 for 37) against Shields.

“When it’s all said and done his numbers are going to be there,” acting Twins manager Terry Steinbach said. “He’s a professional hitter, a great hitter, and just over the course of time it’s going to happen. It was good to see him connect with one and get that ball out of the ballpark.”

Shields put Kansas City in an early hole again. The Royals had seven quality starts in their first eight games, but Bruce Chen allowed two first-inning runs Friday night and only went 3 2/3 innings. Shields gave up a home run to Dozier on his fourth pitch and Minnesota added six runs in the second.

Shields was undone by the defense, including his own.

None of the runs in the second were earned because Shields misplayed a sacrifice bunt by Kurt Suzuki, with the ball slipping out of his hand for an error as the pitcher tried to throw to third base. Shields then walked No. 8 hitter Aaron Hicks with the bases loaded. Later, third baseman Mike Moustakas couldn’t handle a hard-hit grounder by Dozier that deflected into left field for an error, allowing two runs to score.

Mauer followed Moustakas’ error with a three-run homer, his first since Aug. 16 last season.

“Even though it was a 3-2 count, I was trying to go changeup down and away,” Shields said. “He’s a pretty good hitter. He’s going to hit that every time.”

Shields yielded seven runs — one earned — in 5 2/3 innings. He gave up six hits and walked three while striking out five.

— Associated Press —

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Chris Colabello drove in three runs, Kyle Gibson pitched into the seventh inning and the Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals 10-1 Friday night to end a nine-game home losing streak that dated to last season.

Josmil Pinto homered for the Twins, who reached double digits in runs for the third time this year.

Mike Moustakas had two hits for Kansas City, which had won seven straight at Target Field.

A 4-6 start to the season for Minnesota has been largely due to ineffective starting pitching. The Twins had received just two outings of six or more innings entering the game — only one quality start — and the other four starters besides Gibson have a combined 7.50 ERA.

After a shaky first inning when he threw 28 pitches and gave up a run, Gibson (2-0) settled down and retired 14 of the next 18 batters. In 6 1/3 innings, he allowed five hits and one earned run while striking out three, lowering his ERA to 1.59.

It was the second straight strong outing for the right-hander, who won the fifth starter’s spot in spring training. He made his season debut last Saturday against Cleveland, giving up one run and three hits over five-plus innings.

Kansas City starter Bruce Chen also was coming off a strong first performance, having allowed one earned run in six-plus innings against the White Sox last Saturday.

However, against a patient Twins lineup that worked many deep counts, the soft-throwing left-hander allowed seven hits and six earned runs in 3 2/3 innings. He struck out three and walked two, but only 48 of his 87 pitches were strikes. It was just the second time in nine games the Royals did not get a quality start.

Minnesota scored five times in the fourth against Chen (0-1) and reliever Louis Coleman.

With the Twins up 2-1, Pinto led off with a home run to the second deck in left field. Minnesota put two more runners on before Joe Mauer got his first RBI of the season with a single to right field, chasing Chen.

With the bases loaded, Coleman threw his second wild pitch in as many batters, allowing a run to score, before Colabello lined a two-run double down the left field line for a 7-1 lead.

The first two Kansas City batters reached in the seventh before Gibson struck out Alcides Escobar, his last batter. Brian Duensing got the final two outs of the inning.

Kurt Suzuki had a two-run double in the bottom half to make it 9-1.

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Royals’ Alex Gordon knew he put a good swing on the pitch, and he knew that his high fly ball had a chance to clear the outfield wall the way the wind was gusting out.

He just wasn’t sure until the ball finally disappeared.

Gordon’s three-run shot, the first home run by Kansas City this season, highlight a five-run fifth inning Wednesday, and carried the Royals to a 7-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.

“This is a big park. We’re never going to hit a lot of home runs here,” Gordon said. “I hit it pretty good, but in this park you never know. Luckily I caught it enough.”

Gordon finished with four RBIs, matching a career high. Norichika Aoki, Johnny Giavotella and Billy Butler also drove in runs for the Royals, who have struggled to find offense all season.

They had only scored more than four runs once in their first seven games, lost 1-0 to Tampa Bay the previous night, and were the last team in the majors without a home run.

“The offense gave us a lot of breathing room,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Runs are nice. Home runs are nice too. But I don’t care how we get them.”

Jeremy Guthrie (2-0) recovered from a sloppy start to hold the Rays to four hits over seven innings. The only run he allowed came on Desmond Jennings’ homer in the fourth.

The right-hander, who turned 35 on Tuesday, was coming off a rough start against the White Sox. But Guthrie navigated trouble in each of the first three innings, leaving five Rays on base, and then retired his final 12 batters to hand a 7-1 lead to his bullpen.

“You’re going to make good pitches and they’re going to hit them hard sometimes,” Guthrie said. “But if you make good pitches, more often you’re going to get an out.”

Jake Odorizzi (1-1) mowed through the Kansas City lineup the first three innings before allowing Butler’s RBI groundout and Gordon’s run-scoring single in the fourth.

Everything unraveled for him in the fifth.

Lorenzo Cain singled off Odorizzi to lead off the inning, and Aoki followed two batters later with a triple to right. Giavotella, recalled from Triple-A Omaha to replace injured second baseman Omar Infante, hit a sacrifice fly to make it 4-1.

Hosmer and Butler followed with back-to-back singles, and Gordon popped a pitch to right-center that hung up long enough in the wind to land over the fence.

“I was making my pitches, getting what we wanted. Balls were on the ground, not hit very hard, they just didn’t find anybody,” Odorizzi said. “That’s baseball.”

It was a rough way for Odorizzi to return to Kauffman Stadium, where he made his big league debut with the Royals in 2012. He allowed all seven runs on 10 hits and a walk in five innings.

“He didn’t do anything wrong today. He threw really well,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “Those numbers are highly deceiving. Aoki’s ball was well-struck and the home run was part of natural forces of nature. People who look at that line are going to misinterpret that outing because he threw the ball extremely well. It was just an unfortunate game for him.”

The Royals squandered a scoring chance with runners on first and second and one out in the second inning when Mike Moustakas struck out and Gordon was thrown out heading to third.

Royals manager Ned Yost trundled onto the field and challenged the call. After a review of 2 minutes, 10 seconds, the ruling made by third base umpire Quinn Wolcott stood.

It hardly mattered the way the Royals were swinging — and the way Guthrie was pitching.

“They’ve played really well against us the last couple of years. You’ve got to give them credit,” Maddon said. “Just keep doing that stuff and it will come back to us.”

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — (AP) James Loney hit an RBI single with two outs in the ninth inning to lift the Tampa Bay Rays over the Kansas City Royals 1-0 on Tuesday night.

Rays starter Chris Archer wriggled out of two bases-loaded jams and went seven innings in an impressive pitchers’ duel between top young arms. Royals rookie Yordano Ventura dazzled in his season debut, holding Tampa Bay to two hits in six shutout innings.

Looney’s grounder to right scored Wil Myers, who snapped an 0-for-15 slump when he reached on an infield single to start the ninth. Myers advanced on a two-out wild pitch by Greg Holland (0-1).

Joel Peralta (1-1) got one out with the bases loaded and Grant Balfour worked the ninth for his second save.

Ventura walked none and struck out six, including Myers three times.

Archer pitched out of bases-loaded, one-out jams in the third and sixth. He induced Eric Hosmer to ground into a double play to end the third. In the sixth, Archer retired Alex Gordon on an infield popup and Danny Valencia on a grounder to leave the bases full.

The Royals loaded the bases again in the eighth against relievers Jake McGee and Peralta, but Valencia looked at three straight strikes from Peralta to end the inning.

Mike Moustakas, hitless in his first 21 at-bats this season, opened the Royals ninth with a single to center but went no further.

Tampa Bay missed an opportunity in the eighth when Royals reliever Wade Davis walked Matt Joyce and plunked pinch-hitter Logan Forsythe with a pitch. Davis recovered to strike out Yunel Escobar and David DeJesus.

— Associated Press —