KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Officially, the Twins and Royals split their day-night doubleheader on Saturday. But really, the Twins won this round of Debut Derby.
Felix Jorge, the first Twins starting pitcher to go straight from Class AA to the majors in 16 years, shrugged off a first-inning homer, pitched five solid innings and earned his first big-league victory, 10-5 in Kauffman Stadium.
Jorge's success, which included two strikeouts and two double-play grounders, was significantly better than the welcome-to-the-majors scruff-up of Royals rookie Luke Ferrell in the first game. The right-hander, son of Red Sox manager John Farrell who was in the crowd to watch, forced in a pair of runs with bases-loaded walks, surrendered a tape-measure blast to Miguel Sano, and departed after giving up five runs while retiring only eight hitters. But the Royals erased the loss from Ferrell's record by pounding Jose Berrios and two Twins relievers to win the day's first game, 11-6.
The split of long day kept the AL Central standings frozen, since first-place Cleveland and fourth-place Detroit also split a pair. Minnesota, which avoided dropping to .500 on the season with the second-game win, trails the Indians by two games, while Kansas City, winners of 14 of their last 20, is three games back.
Sano's home run in the first game was a moon shot, estimated at 461 feet. His blast in support of fellow Dominican Jorge in the second game rocketed even farther, landing among the patrons in a bar above the seats in left-canter. The twin starbursts made Sano the seventh Twin, and first since Justin Morneau in 2009, to rack up 20 home runs before the All-Star break.
Sano is assured of traveling to Miami next week to join the midseason festivities. Jorge is all but assured of traveling to Minneapolis later this season or next to join the Twins' rotation. He threw 82 pitches, 54 of them strikes, and after his shaky first inning, routinely worked out of trouble. The second batter Jorge faced, Jorge Bonifacio, doubled to deep center field, and he then left a 95 mph fastball high in the strike zone, where K.C. first baseman Eric Hosmer drove it five rows deep into the left-field seats.
After that, though, he overcame his mistakes. Singles in the second and fourth innings were erased by double-play grounders. A leadoff walk in the third was minimized with a pair of strikeouts. A two out triple by Whit Merrifield was rendered harmless when he induced Bonifacio to left a fly ball to right.
Jorge's night ended with a leadoff single to Lorenzo Cain in the sixth inning, and Cain eventually scored when Buddy Boshers surrendered a home run to Jorge Soler. But Minnesota's bullpen closed out the Royals, and its offense, led by Sano's long homer, two RBI doubles from Jason Castro, and a career-high five-hit night from Eddie Rosario, handed the pitchers plenty of support.
That offense couldn't score enough to make a winner of Jose Berrios in the first game, though, despite taking leads of 5-1 and 6-5. Once Farrell departed, the Royals bullpen held the Twins to one run, allowing Kansas City to rally against Berrios, Tyler Duffey and the newly arrived Ryan Pressly.
Berrios allowed at least one hit in all five innings he pitched, and three of them were 400-foot-plus blasts that easily cleared the fences, only the second time in the 23-year-old's two-season career he's given up three homers in a game. Mike Moustakas smashed his 22nd homer of the season in the fourth inning, light-hitting shortstop Alcides Escobar added a two-run shot moments later, and Brandon Moss clubbed one 474 feet to right field in the fifth inning, tying the game.
"We had Moss in (an 0-2) hole and let him get back in the count, then centered a fastball for him," Molitor shrugged. "Jose left his pitches too much in the middle of the plate."
