Bailey Ober continued his recent success versus Kansas City by allowing one run over 5 1/3 innings while Byron Buxton clubbed his 30th homer and Kody Clemens also went deep in the visiting Minnesota Twins’ 5-1 win over the Royals on Sunday.
Ober (5-7) struck out six while yielding just four hits and one walk to earn his first win since May 3 and help the Twins (63-80) snap a six-game skid. The right-hander has allowed four earned runs in 31 innings over his last five starts against the Royals (73-70), who had won three straight.
Buxton, meanwhile, opened the game by reaching 30 homers for the first time. He joined late Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett as the only Twins with 30 home runs and 20 stolen bases in a season, but Buxton exited in the sixth after being hit in the knee by a Michael Lorenzen pitch an inning earlier.
Lorenzen (5-10) was charged with four runs while allowing seven hits and fanning seven over 5 1/3 innings. Vinnie Pasquantino’s RBI single in the sixth was the only run managed by Kansas City, which left the bases loaded in the eighth and ninth.
Buxton wasted no time recording his milestone homer, sending a 2-2 Lorenzen pitch over the left-field wall.
Minnesota used the long ball again to go ahead 3-0 in the fourth. The Twins put the first two men on in the frame, but Lorenzen got Luke Keaschall to ground into a double play. However, Clemens followed with his 451-foot blast over the batter’s eye in center.
The Twins added on in the sixth via a two-out double steal with runners at the corners. Royce Lewis stopped short of second base and Keaschall beat the return throw home.
Kansas City finally got on the board in the sixth when Garcia doubled to left and scored on Pasquantino’s one-out single that ended Ober’s day. However, Minnesota got that run back in the seventh via Daniel Lynch IV’s bases-loaded walk to Matt Wallner.
Kansas City All-Star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. missed a second straight game while considered day-to-day with lower back spasms.
