Even as star Bobby Witt Jr. deals with a back issue, the Kansas City Royals appear confidently poised to continue their surge toward a potential postseason berth.
The Royals can secure a winning homestand by completing a three-game series sweep of the lowly Minnesota Twins on Sunday afternoon.
Kansas City (73-69) is knocking on the door of wild-card position in the American League, and doing so this weekend with Witt plagued by low back spasms that caused him to exit Friday’s 2-1 victory. He sat out Saturday and his status remains uncertain, but the Royals rode a five-run first inning to an 11-2 rout of the Twins.
“We’ve been in a good spot,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.
“And (Witt’s injury) comes out of nowhere.”
For the moment, the Royals have handled it well, winning three straight and looking to finish 5-4 on a homestand that began with them losing two of three each to Detroit and the Los Angeles Angels.
Salvador Perez’s three-run blast Saturday in the first inning was career No. 298 homer, and the offensive highlight for Kansas City, which pounded out 13 hits. Perez has homered in two of the last three contests, while teammate Vinnie Pasquantino is 6-for-12 with three extra-base hits and three RBIs in the last three games.
Scheduled Kansas City starter Michael Lorenzen (5-9, 4.54 ERA) rebounded from yielding eight runs and 16 hits over 9 1/3 innings of his final two August starts. He allowed only a two-run, go-ahead homer to Jo Adell in his sixth and final inning, plus three other hits in a 5-1 home defeat to the Angels on Tuesday.
“Not good enough, really,” Lorenzen said.
“You just show up and play and you try to win each game. It’s pretty much it. You got to control what you can.”
The veteran right-hander is 1-0 with a 2.12 ERA in three career starts against the Twins since 2023. On April 7, he allowed a run, five hits and didn’t walk a batter through six innings of the Royals’ 4-2 victory over Minnesota (62-80), which has been outscored 46-22 while going 0-6 in September.
It also doesn’t bode well that the Twins have won just once in the last 13 starts made by Bailey Ober (4-7, 5.23), who takes the ball Sunday after yielding four runs and two homers over five innings in each of his last two outings. Two of those long balls accounted for three runs during Monday’s 6-5 loss to the White Sox.
“The results aren’t always backing it, so it sometimes can be frustrating,” Ober told the Twins’ official website.
“I just wasn’t able to maintain the velocity. But, I still pitched OK.”
While Ober has a 1.05 ERA in his last four starts against the Royals, the Twins have lost each of those games. He’s yielded just three runs over 18 2/3 innings in three starts versus Kansas City in 2025, but his teammates have totaled two runs overall.
Perez has homered twice versus Ober, while teammate Kyle Isbel is 6-for-14 with a home run against him.
Minnesota’s Byron Buxton is 1-for-8 versus Lorenzen, but had an RBI triple Saturday. He’s recorded 10 extra-base hits and 11 RBIs while hitting safely in eight of his last nine games.
-Field Level Media
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