KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ There was no national anthem, a rain delay so brief, some of the players never left the field, and a loud thunder-and-lightning spectacle that gave empty Kauffman Stadium a haunted-house feel.
Yes, just more from the voluminous catalogue of 2020 weirdness. But none of it was stranger than this: The Twins lost their second game in a row.
Rookie Ryan McBroom crushed a Matt Wisler slider into the center-field seats on Friday, breaking a tie with his second career home run and giving the Royals a lead. Kansas City's bullpen then shut down the Twins from there, holding on for a 3-2 victory that gave the last-place Royals their second consecutive victory and the first-place Twins their second consecutive defeat.
It's the first time in this bizarre season's 14 games that the Twins, who blew a ninth-inning lead at Pittsburgh on Thursday, had dropped back-to-back games.
Byron Buxton homered for the second consecutive game, and Marwin Gonzalez contributed his second of the season, too. But Royals starter Jakob Junis, winless in eight career starts against Minnesota, and a series of Royals relievers kept the Twins off-balance, and off the bases, for much of the night.
Except for the two home runs, no Twins player reached third base through eight innings, leaving Kansas City pitchers to work mostly worry-free.
Devin Smeltzer, making his first start of the season, allowed two runners to reach scoring position during his 4 2/3 innings _ and allowed both to score, too. After a leadoff double to Maikel Franco in the third inning, Nicky Lopez bunted him to third base and outfielder Nick Heath followed with a ground-ball single to left field to score Franco, tying he score at 1-1.
Two innings later, as rain began falling lightly, Smeltzer surrendered a leadoff single to Alex Gordon, the veteran outfielder's 225th career hit against the Twins, most among active players. Gordon moved to second on a dribbler up the first-base line, then immediately scored the tying run when Lopez followed with a single up the middle.
As Gordon crossed the plate, the rain suddenly turned heavy, and umpires waved for the tarp, with Smeltzer shouting his frustration into his glove as he stalked off the mound. But the rain halted as quickly as it started, and some of the Twins stood in foul territory while the umpires conferred and changed their decision, allowing the game to resume after a nine-inning delay.
Matt Wisler received Smeltzer, and appeared to give up the lead right away, walking Brett Phillips and allowing Whit Merrifield to hit what looked like a home run into the Twins' bullpen. But left fielder Jake Cave rushed to the fence, timed his leap, and stole extra bases, and the lead, from Merrifield.
The Royals, however, finally claimed that lead an inning later, when Wisler left a 79-mph slider over the middle of the plate to McBroom, and watched it travel 430 feet in the other direction.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City bullpen looked like the one that helped the Royals to back-to-back AL pennants and a 2015 World Series championship. Greg Holland, the former Royals closer back with the team, retired all four batters he faced in relief of Junis, and Josh Staumont and Scott Barlow kept the Twins from tying the score before Trevor Rosenthal earned the save with a 1-2-3 ninth, striking out pinch hitter Nelson Cruz for the final out.
