Early homers lead Twins to rain-shortened win at K.C.
Minnesota scored two runs in each of the first three innings, getting two-run home runs from Miguel Sano and Ryan LaMarre, and the Twins earned a rain-shortened 6-2 win over the host Kansas City Royals on Friday.
The game was called after a 40-minute delay following the top of the seventh inning.
The American League Central champion Twins (100-60) extended their major league single-season record to 303 home runs.
Jose Berrios (14-8) was credited with a complete-game win. He gave up two runs on six hits and two walks in six innings with nine strikeouts.
Kansas City's Erik Skoglund (0-3) allowed six runs on nine hits in just three innings. He fanned two and walked one.
The Twins got on the board quickly, when Nelson Cruz drove in Sano with a single in the top of the first. The RBI was Cruz's 27th against the Royals this season, the most ever by one player in a season against Kansas City.
Eddie Rosario followed with an RBI single, and the Twins were ahead 2-0 before the first out was recorded. Skoglund got out of the jam with a popup and a double play.
The Royals got one in the bottom of the first on an RBI groundout by Alex Gordon, scoring Whit Merrifield.
The Twins scored two more in the second. Jonathan Schoop hit a leadoff double, and two outs later, Sano launched a Skoglund fastball 439 feet into the fountains in left-center field.
In the third, LaMarre hit a two-out, two-run home run into the seat in left center, scoring C.J. Cron, who had singled.
Merrifield led off the fifth with a triple off the wall in left center, and scored on Jorge Soler's sacrifice fly.
Merrifield went 2-for-3, and he leads the major leagues with 203 hits. He is trying to become the first right-handed hitter since Kirby Puckett (1988-89) to top the AL.
He also has 31 hits in September, his ninth straight month with at least 30 hits, excluding March and October. The last player to do that was Ichiro Suzuki in 2007-08.
--Field Level Media
