The first and second time through the batting order hasn’t been a problem for Luis Mendoza. It’s that third trip through that has given him trouble.

That wasn’t the case Friday night.

Mendoza allowed one run over a career-high eight innings, Salvador Perez homered, and the Kansas City Royals won their fourth straight, hanging on to beat the Minnesota Twins 4-3.

”I’m just glad to stay longer,” Mendoza said. ”It was my first time going eight innings in the big leagues. I just tried to keep going.”

Yuniesky Betancourt, Billy Butler and Eric Hosmer added RBIs for the Royals (35-39), who are four games under .500 for the first time since April 16.

Jonathan Broxton allowed two runs in the ninth, but got Trevor Plouffe to foul out to end the game and earn his 20th save.

”Piece of cake,” Royals manager Ned Yost said with a grin.

Joe Mauer had two hits and an RBI double in the ninth that cut Kansas City’s lead to 4-2. Josh Willingham followed with an RBI groundout.

”We gave ourselves a chance at the end. We just needed another big hit and we were short,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.

The American League-worst Twins lost their third straight and are 2-7 in their last nine home games.

Mendoza (3-4) retired the final 13 batters he faced and 18 of the final 20. He struck out five and allowed one runner to reach second base.

The 28-year-old righty got his first win since May 13, and first as a starter since April 26.

”Earlier in the year he was really struggling the third time around,” Yost said. ”He just waltzed right through them tonight. They couldn’t go up there the third time around just sitting on one pitch.”

Yost is used to things getting interesting when Broxton comes in. But in the end, the Royals usually come out on top.

Broxton is 20 for 23 in save opportunities and the Royals are 31-1 when leading after eight innings.

”It’s always been my experience that good closers know how much they got to work with,” Yost said. ”He’s been a guy that will bend a little bit in these situations, but very seldom does he break. That’s his job. You let him get his job done.”

Making his second start of the season, Brian Duensing (1-4) couldn’t pick up the Twins’ struggling rotation.

The converted reliever allowed three runs and eight hits and was removed after allowing three straight hits to start the fifth. Twins starters are 3-9 with a 5.80 ERA at Target Field over Minnesota’s last 13 home games.

The Royals are 32-25 over their last 57 games and appear to only be getting better as their young hitters improve.

After a 12-game skid early, Kansas City has a legit shot of reaching .500 by the All-Star break.

”We just need to keep pushing,” third baseman Mike Moustakas said. ”It’s a big series here and we need to stay consistent.”

Perez made his 2012 debut one week ago after returning from the disabled list with a torn meniscus in his left knee. He has two home runs and five RBIs in five games.

Alcides Escobar, Kansas City’s 25-year-old shortstop, had two hits and scored a run. Escobar is 9 for his last 13 and leads all shortstops with a .318 batting average.

Hosmer’s infield RBI single in the seventh proved to be the winning run.

Justin Morneau had two hits for Minnesota and just missed a home run in the seventh when his long fly ball died at the wall in right-center.

Ryan Doumit had an RBI single for the Twins.

Before the game, Doumit signed a new $7 million, two-year contract with Minnesota. The 32-year-old catcher and designated hitter is hitting .272 with seven homers and 34 RBIs in his first season with the Twins.

— Associated Press —

On the hottest day this year in Kansas City, dehydration was starting to become a concern. Players were exhausted. Royals manager Ned Yost was starting to feel sorry for Tony Randazzo behind the plate, and he wasn’t even the umpire whose face had been bloodied in the game.

Billy Butler’s tiebreaking home run in the eighth was an especially welcome sight, leading the Royals to a 5-4 victory and three-game sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays.

”It was really, really hot out there,” said Butler, who greeted reliever Burke Badenhop with his 15th home run. ”It was over 100 degrees. Guys were starting to get dehydrated. It was not a good day to go extra innings.”

Yost said trainers had IVs waiting in the locker room.

”We were going to start losing guys,” Yost said. ”We had some guys who were starting to cramp. Eric Hosmer’s elbow was starting to get a little stiff. The umpire was about ready to fall out behind home plate. The heat out there was pretty oppressive. When Billy hit that ball, I was just hoping it was high enough.”

Aaron Crow (1-1), the fifth Royals pitcher, was the winner after getting two outs in the eighth as the Royals recorded their first home sweep of the Rays in 11 years.

”It’s been hot the last few days,” said Rays manager Joe Maddon. ”But I tell you what, you didn’t hear one guy complain. They played right down to the last out. They were great.”

Mike Moustakas and Alcides Escobar also homered for the Royals, who managed to sweep a team three games immediately after getting swept themselves. After a potentially ruinous 12-game losing streak in April, the youthful Royals have fought back to five games under .500 (34-39).

”It would be nice if we made things easier for ourselves once in a while,” said Jeff Francoeur. ”This is the third time now we’ve fought back to get to five games under .500, but then we just take a few steps back. Our goal was to get back to .500 by the All-Star break.”

The Rays had tied it 4-4 in the top of the eighth after Carlos Pena reached leading off on an error that left first base umpire Brian Gorman wiping off blood. Pena’s hot grounder glanced off first baseman Hosmer’s glove and struck Gorman on the left side of the face as he was signaling the ball fair.

The veteran ump cleaned some blood off his face but stayed in the game after being attended to by the Royals’ trainer. Then Tim Collins walked Jeff Keppinger and Ben Zobrist unloaded a two-run triple.

”He had a little cut,” said Yost. ”But he’s fine. Gorman’s fine.”

Zobrist was 3 for 4 with three RBIs but made three outs on the bases. He was thrown out twice at home plate trying to score from third on ground balls.

”It’s a tough way to end the road trip,” said Zobrist. ”They (Royals) were playing great over there. They did everything. They hit the ball really well, they pitched well, and played good defense. We couldn’t get anything going.”

Jonathan Broxton pitched the ninth for his 19th save in 22 opportunities.

Badenhop (1-2) recorded only one out after starter Matt Moore labored through 7 1-3 innings, giving up 10 hits and four runs.

Moustakas, who had two home runs on Sunday, hit the first pitch he saw from Moore in the first inning for his 13th home run. Escobar, who has seven multihit games in his last 12, was 3 for 3 with a double, a single and a solo homer that made it 2-0 in the third.

Yuniesky Betancourt had a two-run single in the fifth as the Royals completed a 3-3 homestand after getting swept by St. Louis.

Just hours after being recalled from Triple-A Omaha, Everett Teaford was charged with two runs on four hits in 5 innings. The left-hander was relieved by Kelvin Herrera with runners at first and second in the sixth and the Rays made it 4-2 on RBI singles from Keppinger and Zobrist before Zobrist ended the inning attempting to steal second.

— Associated Press —

Bruce Chen went seven innings in another workmanlike start, Jeff Francoeur and Yuniesky Betancourt both went deep and the Kansas City Royals beat the Tampa Bay Rays 8-2 on Tuesday night.

Betancourt hit a two-run shot during a four-run third inning against Chris Archer (0-2), and Francoeur added a three-run homer during a four-run eighth to give Kansas City some breathing room.

Alex Gordon and Billy Butler also drove in runs to pace a Royals offense that was outscored by St. Louis 30-14 over the weekend, but has trumped Tampa Bay 16-2 so far this series.

The Royals will go for the sweep on Wednesday afternoon.

Chen (7-6) gave up a run in the first and Brooks Conrad’s solo shot in the second to win for the seventh time in his last nine decisions.

— Associated Press —

Luke Hochevar was taken aback when he walked into the manager’s office one day and manager Ned Yost and the Royals coaches started trying to convince him to make a change.

Simplify your approach, they said. Use your three core pitches.

It took a while for Hochevar to buy in.

Now the change is paying off.

The mercurial right-hander struck out eight in his second career shutout, and the Kansas City offense made sure to come through in an 8-0 rout of the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday night.

”I guess I have to come up with a better word than fantastic, tremendous and great. He was phenomenal,” Yost said. ”The results have been dramatically improved since he got back to his three core pitches. He’s starting to show exactly what he can do.”

His arsenal pared down to primarily a four-seam fastball, curveball and change-up, Hochevar (5-7) mowed through a weak-hitting Tampa Bay lineup for his first shutout since Sept. 18, 2009.

Now, the pitcher who was allowing nearly a run per inning earlier in the year has gone 16 2-3 scoreless innings, and is starting to resembled a former No. 1 overall draft pick.

”That was a great outing by Hoch,” said Eric Hosmer, who tacked on a homer in the eighth inning to finish off the scoring. ”He was in the zone, he was pounding pitches. He was great.”

Alcides Escobar and Alex Gordon both had three hits for the Royals, who were coming off an embarrassing sweep at the hands of St. Louis in which they were outscored 30-14 and burned through their bullpen – which made the start by Hochevar all the more impressive.

No Royals starter had even gone eight innings so far this season.

”If you don’t get him early and permit him to settle in, he gets better,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. ”He was all over us tonight”

Alex Cobb (3-4) also managed to throw a complete game, the first of his career, though it wasn’t nearly as impressive: He allowed 13 hits while falling to 1-4 in his last five starts.

”In the first few innings, I just felt uncomfortable out there,” he said. ”Everything they were hitting was dropping. Unfortunately, they were falling everywhere.”

The banged-up Rays came into the game riding plenty of momentum after a double-header sweep of Philadelphia, while the Royals limped in after their rough series against the Cardinals.

Somebody must have flipped the script.

It was Kansas City that came out swinging from the start, with Gordon’s leadoff double setting up an RBI double by Mike Moustakas when the ball bounced off right fielder Ben Zobrist’s glove and over his head after he appeared to briefly lose it in the setting sun.

Cobb worked through a perfect second inning before coming unglued in the third.

It started with Escobar’s bunt single and a base hit by Gordon, and included a wild pitch that plate umpire Todd Tichenor accidentally kicked away from catcher Jose Molina, allowing both of the runners to advance. Betancourt followed with a two-run single.

Billy Butler came to the plate with one out and added a single, and Jeff Francoeur followed with an RBI single in which Butler was thrown out trying to reach third. Hosmer contributed an RBI single, and Salvador Perez added another run-scoring single, though he was cut down to end the inning after making a wide turn around first.

The inning ended after five runs on seven singles in a span of only eight batters.

The Royals added another run on Betancourt’s sacrifice fly in the fourth inning, and Hosmer went deep in the eighth, though both runs were moot the way Hochevar was dealing.

He got some help from double plays in the first and seventh innings, but otherwise took care of things himself. He worked a perfect second and sixth, and came back from consecutive base hits to start the fifth with three consecutive strikeouts.

It was the first time he had gone eight innings since last Sept. 3 against Cleveland.

This time, Hochevar managed to finish things off.

”I don’t think you ever have it figured out, because hitters adjust, the game is always changing,” he said. ”I know what I’m focusing on now, though, and that’s going to be consistent.”

— Associated Press —

Kansas City Royals prospects Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi and Yordano Ventura today were named to the rosters for the 14th annual SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game.  The game, which will match Myers, Odorizzi and the U.S. squad against Ventura and the World roster, will begin at 4 p.m. CDT on Sunday, July 8 from Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.  The Royals are the only organization in baseball to place three players in the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game.

The game will be televised live on ESPN2, ESPN2 HD and MLB.TV and is also available on the radio at MLB Network Radio (XM channel 89).  Tickets are still available for purchase for the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game and Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game by visiting www.allstargame.com, calling 1-888-326-3378 or visiting the Royals box office at Kauffman Stadium.

Myers, 21, will be making his second-straight appearance at the XM All-Star Futures Game, also appearing last July at Chase Field in Phoenix, Ariz.  The 6-foot-3, 206-pound outfielder is currently tied with 31-year-old Brad Eldred for the minor league baseball lead with 24 home runs.  Myers opened the season with Northwest Arkansas (AA) before being promoted to Omaha (AAA) in mid-May.  He has combined to hit .336 (86-for-256) with 18 doubles, three triples, 24 home runs, 62 RBI and 60 runs scored in 68 games, posting a .416 on-base pct. and .711 slugging mark.  He is the Royals third-round selection from the 2009 June Free Agent Draft.

The 22-year-old Odorizzi, like Myers, opened 2012 with Northwest Arkansas before a promotion to Omaha.  The 6-foot-2 right-hander has compiled an 8-2 record with a 2.89 ERA in 13 games (12 starts), recording 81 strikeouts in 71.2 innings while holding opponents to a .219 average.  Odorizzi was acquired along with shortstop Alcides Escobar, outfielder Lorenzo Cain and pitcher Jeremy Jeffress from the Milwaukee Brewers on December 19, 2010 in exchange for pitcher Zack Greinke and infielder Yuniesky Betancourt.

Ventura, 21, worked a scoreless inning with a walk and a strikeout at the Carolina-California League All-Star Game on Tuesday.  The 5-foot-11 right-hander is 3-5 with a 3.10 ERA in 13 starts for High-A Wilmington, posting 78 strikeouts in 61.0 innings.  Born and raised in Samana, Dominican Republic, Ventura was signed by the Royals as a non-drafted free agent on October 8, 2008.

Major League Baseball, in conjunction with the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau, MLB.com, Baseball America and the 30 MLB teams selected the 25-man rosters for each club.

— Royals Media Relations —