Minnesota Twins end their run of last-inning wins when Kansas City Royals take a turn

The Twins were one strike away from keeping the Royals scoreless Sunday, but Freddy Fermin slapped a run-scoring double. They were one strike away from keeping the game tied, but Maikel Garcia poked a run-scoring single. They were one hit away from finishing off a game-winning, extra-inning rally, but hits weren’t exactly in abundance for the Twins.

So a day set up perfectly for the Twins’ fourth walk-off win in a five-game homestand wound up with the Royals walking off with a real mood-killer, 2-1 at Target Field.

“We were trying to just keep putting up zeroes and stretching the game out. You figure we’re going to have an opportunity to win it and someone’s going to come through,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “There’s really not a lot to say.”

Nope, not when you manage only three hits over 10 innings off Royals lefthander Kris Bubic and three relievers, and only one over the final nine. Even when your own pitching puts you in a made-to-order situation — tie score, ninth inning, top of the order coming up — it takes some semblance of offense to set off that familiar home plate celebration.

Instead, Kansas City reliever Carlos Estévez retired all three hitters in the ninth, and Taylor Clarke left two Twins stranded in the 10th. That meant Garcia’s two-strike, two-out single off Jhoan Duran in the 10th, scoring courtesy runner Nick Loftin from second base, was enough to ward off the Twins’ sweep.

“What was it, breaking ball down in the zone? … Right at the bottom of the zone,” Baldelli mused. “But it’s not like it wasn’t executed. Our guys have good stuff. When they make pitches like that, most of the time they’re going to get good results.”

The Twins, meanwhile, sent only three batters to the plate in eight of the 10 innings. Even starting with Carlos Correa on second base in the 10th, they produced no runs.

Royce Lewis popped up for the first out, but pinch-hitter Kody Clemens walked. Harrison Bader knocked a double-play grounder to shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., but second baseman Michael Massey’s relay to first was too late. Bader then stole second base, but with a chance to be the walk-off hero for a second straight day, Brooks Lee hit a grounder to Witt, a routine final out.

“These division games are tough because the pitching has been tough. Every starter you run into has excellent stuff,” Baldelli said. “The intensity in these games, because there’s very few lopsided ballgames, they become very hotly contested. There’s a lot of games where one play makes the difference between winning and losing the game. I like that kind of baseball.”

Just not on Sunday. The loss was only the Twins’ third in their past 19 games games, and fourth at home in their past 21 at Target Field.

Bailey Ober allowed only one run for the seventh time in 11 starts this season, and it took a two-out hit by the last batter he faced to pry that much from him. After pitching six shutout innings, three times stranding runners in scoring position, Ober surrendered a leadoff double to Drew Waters in the seventh inning. A ground ball and a popup kept Waters on second base, but Fermin, the Royals’ catcher, served an 0-2 changeup into the gap in left-center, a game-tying double that ended Ober’s day.

“I mean, he didn’t hit it over 90 mph,” Ober, who had not started a Twins loss since April 10, said of Fermin’s 88.8-mph looper. “I thought he’d be off the changeup. I threw him three sliders and he wasn’t really close to those, so I thought maybe he’d be looking for something out over, and I threw a changeup that darted underneath the zone. He just hit a ball where we weren’t.”

One run might not normally matter much, but Ober’s brilliance had been matched, even exceeded, by Bubic, the Royals ace who had allowed only one run over 25⅓ innings in his four previous May starts. Two batters into Bubic’s start, the Twins had already matched that total — Ryan Jeffers led off the first inning with a double to deep right field, and Ty France singled to center, driving in Jeffers — but Bubic allowed nothing else. In fact, Jeffers was the last Twin all day to reach second base.

BOXSCORE: Royals 2, Twins 1 (10)

MLB standings

Bubic would face 22 more Twins batters in his seven-inning start, and none of them could eke out a hit. He walked two but faced the minimum 18 hitters over his last six innings. Trevor Larnach broke the spell with a one-out single off reliever Jonathan Bowlan in the eighth, but he was caught trying to steal — a call that replay upheld, much to the disagreement of the 32,501 in attendance.

“Hat’s off to [Bubic]. He was good the whole game,” Jeffers said. “But we led most of the way. They just got a couple of big-time knocks when we didn’t, and that was the difference in the game.”