Twins out of Wild Card Race with Loss to Royals

The Kansas City Royals are trying to secure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs while the Minnesota Twins just want to be invited to the postseason party.

Chris Young made the most of his first start since July 28, surrendering just one walk over five hitless innings in a 3-0 victory over the Indians last Thursday.

“I think it shows how much trust they have, especially after my last start here”, Milone said. In the sixth, he walked to the mound preparing to face sluggers Miguel Sano, Trevor Plouffe and Eddie Rosario. On the other hand, the Royals hope that Young can give them a good outing so they can keep pace with Toronto, even though the Jays own the tiebreaker for winning the regular season series.

“We let him off the hook there a little bit and then he got locked in”, Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “He just had good deception today”.

The Twins dropped two games behind Houston and one back of Los Angeles in the AL wild-card race. With two days left to make up ground this was as devastating a defeat as they’ve had in 2015. Perkins went after Zobrist with a first-pitch fastball and Zobrist jumped on it and hit a ball all the way to the wall in left-center field, which was deep enough to score the speedy Alcides Escobar from first base. The Angels beat Texas to pass the Twins, and the Astros played later at Arizona. A double from Ben Zobrist and a single from Mike Moustakas highlighted a two-run eighth inning that helped lead the Royals to the victory.

Royals closer Wade Davis entered and struck out pinch hitter Kennys Vargas and shortstop Eduardo Escobar to earn his 17th save.NOTES: Royals OF Lorenzo Cain returned to the lineup. It could have been for his 7 innings in a critically important game Friday night, or perhaps for his great pitching down the stretch.

“If Joe’s playing in there, I don’t know if he gets that ball that Hosmer hits”, Molitor said. Zobrist added a timely RBI double in the eighth.

Twins: LHP Tommy Milone (9-5, 4.04) will take the mound in the middle game of the series, coming off a critical win at Cleveland on Monday following an 11-day break due to weakness around his shoulder. Cain fouled a pitch off his right knee two nights ago against the Chicago White Sox and Morales’ left quad was sore.

With a fifth consecutive victory at Target Field on Saturday, the Royals would eliminate the Twins from playoff contention. He’s 8-1 with a 3.26 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 80 innings over his last 13 turns, and the only loss in that stretch was to the Twins at home on September 7.