MINNEAPOLIS _ The Twins rode their rookies and an interesting closer to a 4-3 victory over Kansas City on Friday night at Target Field, lowering their magic number to win the AL Central to five.
Randy Dobnak earned his first career victory. He was followed by Cody Stashak, Devin Smeltzer and Brusdar Graterol _ all fellow rookies _ before Trevor May was asked to pitch the ninth inning with a one-run lead and AL home run leader Jorge Soler potentially looming as the go-ahead run if anyone got on base.
May struck out the side for only his second save of the season.
The Twins scored twice in the first inning and held a 2-0 lead until Alex Gordon hit a RBI single off of Devin Smeltzer in the sixth to cut the lead in half. But the Twins padded their lead in the bottom of the inning.
Eddie Rosario reached on a fielder's choice and Miguel Sano walked before Marwin Gonzalez stroked a double to right, scoring both runners. Sano, who legged out a triple in the first, scored from first on the back end of Gonzalez's double.
The Twins led 4-1, but Kansas City responded with two runs in the eighth after Adalberto Mondesi and Soler reached base. Graterol entered the game but gave up three singles as the Royals got within two again, at 4-3.
Mitch Garver had led off the first with a walk off of Royals left-hander Eric Skoglund and Jorge Polanco followed with a double to put runners on second and third. Nelson Cruz stepped to the plate with his first crack at hitting the 400th home run of his career. He sent a high fly ball to center, but it was caught by Erick Mejia. Garver tagged up from third and scored the first run of the game.
Sano batted with two outs and sent a drive to the wall in center that got by Mejia. Polanco scored to make it 2-0 while Sano rumbled into third with a triple, his second of the season and just the sixth of his career
The Twins couldn't mount much more against Skoglund and the Royals bullpen for the next four innings, but that didn't add to Twins right-hander Dobnak's challenge. He had a lively sinker and curveball early, racking up nine swings and misses over the first three innings of the game.
Dobnak also handles situations well. Kansas City had runners on first and second with one out in the second but got Mejia to hit into a force play before Nicky Lopez flied out. Dobnak hit the leadoff batter, Nick Dini, in the third and later found himself in a two-out jam before getting Hunter Dozier to pop out to end the inning.
The Royals were 0 for 3 with runners in scoring position on Friday, That dropped opponents' batting average against Dobnak with runners in scoring position to .115. Either he slows the game down or bears down even more in those situations. So far, he's been more than effective in them.
His biggest challenge, however, is coming up on Sept. 28. Since Dobnak had never been in the majors until this season, he figured his offseason would end in early September when Class AAA Rochester finished up. So he and his fiance, Aerial Munson, are scheduled to be married on Sept, 28 at Williamsport, Md. That was before his life changed and he became a big leaguer.
The Twins are scheduled to be in Kansas City at that time. He's on schedule to get the 28th off, but crazy things can happen with scheduling after a team clinches a division title. And, despite, Cleveland's surge, the Twins should have the division wrapped up by then.
