Cole De Vries had a couple of key strikeouts during what could have been the inning that doomed him to defeat against the Kansas City Royals, allowing him to escape further damage and keep the game tied up.

He couldn’t remember what he threw to either of the batters.

“The whole thing is a blur,” he said, “to be honest with you.”

That’s because Minnesota responded to the Royals’ three runs with three of their own the next half inning, helping De Vries pick up his first major league win with a 10-7 victory Monday night.

“It feels awesome,” said De Vries, a former undrafted free agent out of the University of Minnesota. “It’s something I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”

De Vries (1-1) got a whole lot of help.

Justin Morneau and Josh Willingham each hit two-run homers, and Trevor Plouffe also went deep. Jamey Carroll reached base four times with two RBIs, and Ben Revere also drove in two runs.

“It shows we can ad lib a little bit,” said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, who was forced into a makeshift lineup when Joe Mauer showed up at the ballpark with a sore thumb. “We can pop a baseball, and I’ve always said if our pitcher gives us a chance, we can win some games.”

The Twins have won six of their last seven, to be exact.

The Twins led 4-1 in the bottom of the fourth when Mike Moustakas followed a pair of singles to start the inning with an RBI double. Jeff Francoeur proceeded to slap a grounder to Minnesota shortstop Brian Dozier, who let the ball go right through the wickets for a run.

Hosmer was next to bat and hit a grounder at second baseman Alexi Casilla, who stumbled all over himself for another error. The Royals wound up tying the game on the play.

De Vries ended the rally with the two key strikeouts.

“When something like that happens, someone has to pick it up,” he said. “I was happy to be able to do that, pick it up for the guys.”

Morneau broke the tie with his two-run shot off Will Smith (1-2), who was also making his third big league start. Plouffe’s homer moments later restored the three-run cushion.

The Twins survived two runs in the ninth by Kansas City, and Matt Capps got Johnny Giavotella to ground out with the tying run on deck to finish it.

Moustakas homered and had a pair of doubles with two RBIs, and Eric Hosmer also drove in two runs for the Royals, providing them with at least a few bright spots.

The error by shortstop by Alcides Escobar in the first inning certainly wasn’t one of them. Nor was the stretch of three walks issued by Royals pitchers in the sixth inning.

Smith was charged with seven runs on eight hits and two walks in 4 2/3 innings, a somewhat sobering performance after he allowed two runs over six frames his last time out.

“I thought he threw the ball OK at times. His ball would start on the corner and just drift back to the middle of the plate,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “They put the good end of the bat on it and drove it into the seats.”

Enough times to make De Vries a winner for the first time.

“I was impressed he was able to hang in there,” Gardenhire said. “Any time you get an opportunity to celebrate y our first career win, it’s a special deal.”

— Associated Press —

Alex Gordon and Brayan Pena combined on a play at the plate to preserve a shutout for Vin Mazzaro and three Royals relievers.

Mazzaro went six innings to help Kansas City beat up on punchless Oakland again. The Athletics are hitting .209 on the season and have been shut out in three of their past four games. The Royals sent the A’s to their 10th loss in 11 games.

In the fifth inning, Josh Reddick hit a foul fly ball that Gordon caught near the seats. Adam Rosales tagged up at third, as Gordon let fly. The throw beat Rosales, who tried but failed to jar the ball loose from Pena.

No luck.

“It was just a reaction play,” Gordon said. “I thought it was in the stands when he hit it. It kind of crossed my mind should I catch it or let it drop. It was just one of those bang-bang plays. I caught it, bobbled it and just tried to chuck it over (Rosales’) head a little bit. I put it right there. It was definitely a good time of the game for that to happen. It gave us some momentum.”

Gordon, who moved from third base to the outfield only two years ago, won a Gold Glove last year.

“I thought that was a phenomenal play,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “I thought the ball was going to be in the stands. The thing that was impressive was Alex didn’t give up on it. He caught the ball on the dead run and made a tremendous throw to the plate over the runner. That was a good hit Pena took. The runner had time to plow into him.”

Eric Hosmer homered and Mazzaro (2-0), who pitched for the A’s from 2009-10 before being traded to the Royals, allowed four singles, walked three and struck out three.

Mazzaro escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first after giving up singles to Collin Cowgill and Reddick and walking Kila Ka’aihue. Brandon Inge grounded out to end the inning.

“I thought we had our opportunities early and we didn’t score,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “Mazzaro got better as the game went along. (Tommy) Milone pitched the way he’s been pitching all year. He got in some jams a couple of times. But you give up two runs, you keep your team in the game with a chance to win. You expect to score at least two runs every game.”

Relievers Kelvin Herrera, Greg Holland and Jonathan Broxton gave up one hit in one inning each to complete the Royals’ fifth shutout of the year. Broxton got his 13th save in 15 opportunities.

Hosmer homered to center field leading off the second against Milone (6-5). It was Hosmer’s first home run of the season off a left-handed pitcher.

The Royals got another run in the fifth when Johnny Giavotella’s single scored Jarrod Dyson, who started the inning with a single and stole second.

Milone gave up eight hits in seven innings and matched his career high with six strikeouts. He tossed eight scoreless innings and allowed three hits to beat the Royals 1-0 on April 9 in his A’s debut.

Oakland’s Cliff Pennington went 0 for 3 with a sacrifice bunt and is hitless in his past 29 at-bats, the longest drought of his career.

— Associated Press —

Ned Yost and everyone else in the Royals dugout was yelling at Felipe Paulino when Jemile Weeks took off for second base with two outs in the third inning Friday night.

Paulino never heard them. How could he out on the mound with the crowd roaring?

Yet he whirled around anyway and threw Weeks out with a pinpoint throw, getting out of a jam and keeping the Oakland Athletics off the scoreboard. He managed to get through six innings before turning it over to the Kansas City bullpen, which held on for the 2-0 victory.

As for the pickoff throw in the third, well, everything’s been going Paulino’s way lately.

“The biggest out was the caught stealing,” Yost said. “Paulino made a fantastic throw. We were all yelling, ‘Step off! Step off! Step off!’ But you can’t hear anything out there.”

Paulino stepped off anyway and made the key out of the game, and then came back the next inning and picked off Yoenis Cespedes when he drifted too far off first base.

The two outs in tight situations helped Paulino (3-1) hold the opposition off the scoreboard entirely through six innings for the fourth time in six starts, making him the unquestionable ace of one of the most haphazard starting rotations in baseball.

“Everything is going good for me,” Paulino said. “I got in a couple of situations in the third and fourth, but I tried to put up zeros and I did that.”

Yuniesky Betancourt came off the disabled list to provide an RBI double in the first, and Mike Moustakas added an RBI blooper to left later in the inning, helping Kansas City win for only the sixth time in 23 games at Kauffman Stadium this season.

Both of the Royals’ runs were charged to Bartolo Colon (4-6), who recovered from a sloppy start to last seven innings — an encouraging outing after going 1-3 with a 7.92 ERA in May.

Jonathan Broxton worked a perfect ninth for his 12th save.

“I was able to throw some strikes,” said Broxton, who was facing the A’s for the first time since back-to-back hit batters gave Oakland a victory on the Royals’ opening road trip. “I started elevating, and once I started elevating, they started swinging right through it.”

The A’s have been shut out six times in their last 16 games, and have been outscored 39-12 during their current losing streak. They came into the night ranked last in the majors in batting average (.210) and slugging percentage (.338), and second-to-last in on-base percentage and runs.

“It’s pretty much the same story offensively. We’re having some struggles,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. “No matter what you’re doing, you’re always trying to find things to do to better yourself. We’re just having trouble doing it.”

The Royals nearly added to their first-inning cushion, but Alcides Escobar grounded out to leave two runners aboard. Kansas City also left a runner in scoring position in the second inning before failing twice to plate a run with the bases loaded in the third.

Colon was brilliant over the next four innings, allowing only a two-out single by Escobar in the sixth and a leadoff single by Humberto Quintero in the seventh.

“A veteran like him doesn’t let a couple of runs early on fluster him,” Melvin said. “He just puts that aside and goes out and pitches the game.”

The problem for Oakland was that Paulino was just as good.

The right-hander wasn’t particularly efficient, burning through 94 pitches in six innings, yet he managed to keep a struggling Oakland lineup off balance all night.

Weeks led off the game with a double that just skipped past Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer, but Paulino came back to retire the next eight in order.

He also set the A’s down in order in the fifth and sixth before turning it over to the bullpen, which has been stellar most of the season. Kelvin Herrera worked a perfect seventh and Greg Holland worked around a one-out walk before handing the game to Broxton in the ninth.

“Our pitching was phenomenal tonight,” Yost said. “Felipe Paulino threw the ball very well, and the bullpen did what it’s been doing all year.”

— Associated Press —

The Kansas City Royals are headed home on a high note.

Wednesday’s 6-3 win over the Cleveland Indians was significant on several fronts for the Royals. The victory gave Kansas City a 5-4 road trip in which it won four of its last six games. The Royals, who are off Thursday, finished May with a 15-13 record, their first winning mark in the month since 2000.

Kansas City, which took two of three in both Baltimore and Cleveland after losing two of three in New York to open the trip, is 16-11 on the road. The Royals are 18-14 since losing 12 straight from April 11-24.

“It’s time to forget about the streak,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost said. “We’ve played really good baseball from that point on and we’re going to continue to get better.”

“We played three good teams,” said left fielder Alex Gordon, who had two hits and drove in a run. “Baltimore and Cleveland are at the top of their divisions. We’re starting to play a little better. This road trip is definitely a positive.”

Bruce Chen overcame a rocky second inning and the Royals scored their first five runs with two outs. Chen (4-5) held Cleveland scoreless after giving up three runs in the second. Gordon, Johnny Giavotella, Mike Moustakas, Jeff Francoeur and Brayan Pena each had run-scoring hits to help Kansas City rally from a 3-0 deficit.

Chen worked the first five innings before relievers Tim Collins, Aaron Crow, Jose Mijares and Jonathan Broxton pitched scoreless ball over the final four innings. Broxton worked a shaky ninth for his 11th save.

Broxton retired the first batter, but Shin-Soo Choo walked and Jason Kipnis singled. Asdrubal Cabrera walked to load the bases, but Jose Lopez hit into a game-ending double play.

Cleveland, which has lost five of six, fell to 4-11 against left-handed starters.

The Indians announced before the game that designated hitter Travis Hafner will have arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Thursday and is expected to miss four to six weeks. Catchers Carlos Santana and Lou Marson and third baseman Jack Hannahan are also out with injuries.

Cleveland has an off-day Thursday, which is about the only good news manager Manny Acta has had in the last week.

“This was not a good series,” he said. “The week continues to be rough for us. Pitching sets the tone, and we aren’t setting the right one. The day off comes at a perfect time. We all need to go home and relax, and come back and play better baseball on Friday.”

Chen, who improved to 6-3 against Cleveland, chuckled when asked if he had to grind out the victory.

“It was a battle,” he said. “The bullpen did a great job. Once we got the lead, I couldn’t let my teammates down. It was a total team win.”

Jeanmar Gomez (3-4) gave up five runs in five innings. The Indians, who swept a three-game series from Detroit last week, lost all three games in Chicago over the weekend and dropped two of three against the Royals. Cleveland, which is off Thursday, fell out of first place in the AL Central for the first time since April 24 with Tuesday’s loss.

Kansas City scored twice in the third on an RBI double by Moustakas and a run-scoring single by Francoeur. Gordon’s run-scoring double and an RBI single by Giavotella put the Royals ahead in the fourth. Pena, who had three hits, added an RBI single in the fifth. The rallies in the fourth and fifth began with two outs and nobody on.

“That just shows you our offense right now,” said Yost. “They keep getting after it even with nobody on and two outs. That’s a good sign.”

The Indians scored three times in the second on run-scoring singles by Casey Kotchman and Choo and an RBI fielder’s choice by Luke Carlin.

Moustakas hit an RBI double in the third before Francoeur’s single to left made it 3-2.

The Royals scored two more with two outs in the fourth, when Gordon doubled off the wall in left and Giavotella hit a single through the right side .

Billy Butler, the only starter without a hit, added an RBI groundout in the eighth.

The Royals, who lost their first 10 home games of the season, return to Kauffman Stadium for a series against Oakland on Friday. Kansas City is major-league worst 5-17 at home.

“We’ve got to figure that out,” Gordon said. “We’ve been playing better on the road. It’s just one of those things that will come over time. We’re due for a good stretch at home.”

Gomez gave up 10 hits.

Left-hander Scott Barnes, called up from Triple-A Columbus before the game, made his major league debut in the sixth. He walked two and hit a batter, but didn’t allow a run.

Johnny Damon singled in the sixth for his 2,736th career hit, which moves him past Goose Goslin and into 54th place on the career list.

Cabrera played shortstop Wednesday and was 1 for 4 with a walk. He was the DH on Tuesday after missing four games with a strained hamstring.

— Associated Press —

Will Smith celebrated his first major league win by taking four showers.

Two by teammates dousing him with beer and two more to rinse off the suds.

“I’m very clean,” he said, “and very happy.”

Smith survived a shaky start and pitched six innings for his first win and Mike Moustakas had a career-best four RBIs, leading the Kansas City Royals to an 8-2 win over Cleveland on Tuesday night, bouncing the Indians out of first place in the AL Central for the first time in 28 days.

Moustakas hit a two-run homer off Justin Masterson (2-4) in the first inning and singled in two runs in the second as the Royals built a 7-2 lead for Smith (1-1).

That was more than enough support for the left-hander, who allowed two runs and four hits and rebounded nicely after being thumped by the New York Yankees in his big-league debut last week. Afterward, the humble 22-year-old was stunned by the moment.

“It’s just awesome,” said Smith, who was in the clubhouse for the final three innings. “An amazing feeling. You think of what it will be like your whole life. Just getting to the big leagues, and then to win? It’s a dream come true.”

Humberto Quintero added two RBIs as the Royals, despite three errors and 12 strikeouts, improved to 15-11 on the road.

Masterson, who beat Detroit ace Justin Verlander in his previous start, allowed seven earned runs in six innings.

The Indians have dropped four of five since sweeping the Tigers last week. Following the game, Indians manager Manny Acta opened his remarks by commenting on his team’s flat performance.

“I must confess, that had to be the most boring game I have ever been part of,” he said. “That second inning just sucked all the energy out of us.”

Smith took the mound with a 2-0 lead but quickly found trouble, walking the first two hitters he faced before giving up a single to load the bases. Smith limited the damage to two runs and gained strength as he went along. After he allowed two singles in the third, the only Cleveland player to reach — on a throwing error by third baseman Moustakas — was erased on a double play.

Smith walked two and struck out five.

“I just got mad and went after them,” he said. “It sure helps when your offense puts up some runs. I can’t thank them enough.”

Royals manager Ned Yost said he nearly pulled Smith in the first.

“It was real shaky, so much so that I had (Vin) Mazzaro warming up,” Yost said. “If it gets to four (runs), I’m getting him. I didn’t want to do it. Then he got after it. Getting the lead helped him regain composure and he pretty much said, ‘Enough of this.’ And he went right after people.”

Masterson trailed 7-2 after two innings but, like Smith, the right-hander found his groove and finished with no walks and eight strikeouts, his most since fanning 10 on Opening Day.

“It’s always one inning,” Masterson said.

Most of the pregame discussion centered around Cleveland closer Chris Perez’s gesture toward Royals outfielder Jarrod Dyson in the ninth inning of Monday’s series opener.

Perez, who irked the Royals with comments earlier this season, celebrated a strikeout of Dyson by waving his hand — “You can’t see me” — in front of his face. Dyson was annoyed by Perez’s antics and was looking forward to getting even with the right-hander. That matchup never materialized as the Royals built a large lead and rolled.

Indians shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera went 1 for 4 as the DH after missing three consecutive games with a tight hamstring.

By the end of the second inning, Moustakas already had his four RBIs and was looking for more. After connecting for his eighth homer in the first, his two-run single capped a five-run outburst in the second off Masterson as the Royals opened a five-run lead.

Kansas City used small-ball tactics — a single, hit batter and sacrifice — to set things up before Quintero, Alex Gordon and Johnny Giavotella delivered RBI singles. Moustakas just missed hitting a three-run homer — the umpires left the field to review his shot to right — before his base hit made it 7-2.

Moustakas was batting just .115 (3 of 26) on the road trip before his homer in the first. With Giavotella on with a fielder’s choice, Moustakas drove Masterson’s 3-1 pitch over the wall in right-center to make it 2-0.

Moustakas could have accepted some of the credit for getting Smith his first win, but he passed the praise off to his young teammate.

“It’s a big night for Will,” he said. “That’s what today is all about. It was a lot of fun watching him get his first major league victory.”

The Indians tied it in their half on RBIs by Jose Lopez and Michael Brantley, and Cleveland seemed to have Smith reeling. But the smooth lefty, who lasted just 3 1/3 innings in his debut at Yankee Stadium, retired Aaron Cunningham on a pop out before striking out Lonnie Chisenhall.

— Associated Press —