KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas stood in front of his locker Tuesday afternoon, and before long, a conversation analyzing the work of his teammates shifted to a 2017 prognostication. He projected his comeback from a serious knee injury, the return of a veteran, playoff-tested core and the potential impact of young prospects.
Hours later, the Royals tabled the 2017 talk for 24 hours.
The Royals fought off two deficits and used outfielder Billy Burns' sacrifice fly to defeat the Minnesota Twins 4-3 in 11 innings Tuesday, staving off postseason elimination for another day.
The Royals, 80-77, have five games left in the regular season and trail Baltimore by five games for the second American League wild-card berth. In other words, a nearly inevitable finish _ in which Major League Baseball crowns a new champion in 2016 _ was halted by Burns' sacrifice fly in a game that saw 17 pitchers toe the rubber.
The bullpens cycled through a total of 15 pitchers before Twins lefty Tommy Milone was tagged for the first run either allowed in the 11th.
A walked ignited the rally.
Royals rookie Raul Mondesi fought off an 0-2 count to lead off the inning with the free pass. He moved to second on a delayed steal, then moved to third on Jarrod Dyson's sacrifice bunt. The Twins walked Whit Merrifield and Eric Hosmer to bring up Burns, who had entered the game in the ninth inning as a pinch runner for Kendrys Morales. Burns laced a line drive to center field, and Mondesi breezed home.
That provided the Royals with their first lead of the night after they wiped out deficits of two runs and one run in the fourth and fifth innings, respectively.
They squandered a chance to grab hold of their initial lead in the eighth inning. Third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert led off with a single before giving way to pinch runner Terrance Gore, who stole second base with Dyson at the plate and third base after Dyson struck out. But on a 2-0 pitch, Merrifield concluded the threat when he popped up a bunt. The Twins doubled up Gore, who had sprinted across the plate.
In his penultimate start of his first season in a Royals uniform, Ian Kennedy labored through five innings, allowing three runs in a no-decision. He threw 106 pitches.
He will conclude the Royals' season Sunday, when he takes the mound for the final game of the year.
Twins starter Jose Berrios, a right-handed pitching prospect receiving his first glimpse of the major leagues during the season's final weeks, was removed before completing the fifth inning. He allowed three runs.
Berrios entered the game with an 8.88 earned run average across his first 12 appearances. On Tuesday, he navigated through his initial three innings in only 36 pitches, offsetting the lone baserunner with a double play to face the minimum.
The fourth provided a self-inflicted challenge. Berrios walked Dyson, and after a double from Merrifield and single from Hosmer, the Royals were on the board. They drew even when Morales grounded a ball to first base, and the Twins opted to turn a double play rather than cut down the tying run at home plate.
Twins right fielder Max Kepler supplied a bloop single to put Minnesota back in front in the fifth, but Dyson responded with a replay of it in the bottom half of the inning, pulling the Royals even once more.
The Twins opened the scoring in the second inning off Kennedy, when catcher Juan Centeno laced a double into the left center-field gap, scoring shortstop Eduardo Escobar.
Escobar drove himself home two innings later, a 429-foot plunge into the upper deck of the Kauffman Stadium fountains in right field. The home run came on the 10th pitch of the at-bat.
