The Minnesota Twins defeated the Kansas City Royals, 3-1, in the first game of a doubleheader between the two teams at Kauffman Stadium on Saturday.
Royals starter Will Smith went six innings, giving up three runs on nine hits in the loss. He received little run support as Kansas City scattered seven hits and pushed just one run across the plate.
Cole De Vries earned his fourth win for Minnesota, going 6.2 innings and allowing just one run while striking out three. He kept the ball down for the most part, inducing eight groundball outs to six flyouts. Glen Perkins came on to pitch the final inning for his ninth save.
Justin Morneau provided the first offense of the game with an RBI double in the first inning. He would later get a second RBI on a sacrifice fly to make the score 2-0. The lead was extended to 3-0 when Ryan Doumit drove home Darin Mastroianni with a single in the fifth.
Kansas City's lone run came in the seventh, when Johnny Giavotella plated Mike Moustakas with a two-out single.
The teams will play again at about 6:30 p.m. CT. Luke Hochevar will take the mound for the Royals against Minnesota's Liam Hendriks.
For more in-depth coverage of this series, check out Royals blog Royals Review and Twins blog Twinkie Town. For more news, notes and analysis from around baseball, visit Baseball Nation.
