MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- There are some games teams just seem destined to lose.
That was likely the case Saturday night at Target Field when the Royals operated with a reduced bullpen and fell 4-1 to the Twins. The Royals remain in first place in the AL Central, but by just half a game.
Manager Ned Yost simply had to rest his two bullpen studs -- Wade Davis and Greg Holland -- and hoped he could get a long start from Yordano Ventura.
Ventura carried a one-hit shutout into the seventh inning, but the Twins benefited from some small ball -- two bunt hits and an infield grounder that scored the tying run.
In all, the Twins got three in that inning off Ventura, who likely would have already been getting iced in the training room. But Yost had to save Kelvin Herrera, normally the seventh-inning guy, for possibly the ninth inning since he didn't have Davis or Holland.
"You're not going to get perfect conditions every day," Yost said of his weary bullpen. "And you can't run them into the ground when you have this much season left. We needed other guys to step up."
Unfortunately for the Royals, they couldn't solve Twins starter Phil Hughes, who cruised through 7 1/3 innings and got the win.
"You're not going to win every night," Yost said.
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3 UP
-- Aoki's heads-up play. Nori Aoki got the Royals the lead in the fourth inning when he doubled off the wall in right field, stole third and scored when the throw from the catcher sailed into left field. The Twins certainly weren't looking for a steal with the heart of the Royals' order coming up. But Aoki got a great jump and made the gamble work. Aoki, though, lost track of the errant throw and needed some encouragement from third-base coach Mike Jirschele to get up and run home.
"I lost track of it and looked where the throw should have been," Aoki said through his interpreter. "But it wasn't there."
Catcher Kurt Suzuki's throw squirted out of his hand and landed over the shortstop's head. Jirschele, who has asked Aoki how to pronounce some baseball terminology in Japanese, simply shouted, "Go!"
"I do understand 'Go!'" Aoki said.
-- Great double play. Ventura's control obviously was an issue (five walks in the first five innings). But the Royals played some good defense to bail him out. After Ventura loaded the bases in the second inning, he got Chris Parmelee to bounce a grounder to Omar Infante's left at second. Infante fielded it, made a nice pivot and throw to Alcides Escobar at short, who fired to first for an inning-ending double play.
-- Raul snaps out of it. Raul Ibanez came in riding an 0-for-12 slump but drilled a single to right field his first time up. He also hit another ball hard his next time up, singling in the hole to right field. There wasn't much to talk about offensively for the Royals on this night, but Ibanez did his part.
3 DOWN
-- The missed tag. Hard to fault first baseman Billy Butler on the key play of the game. The Twins had runners on second and third with one out, and Butler fielded a broken-bat grounder from Danny Santana. Suzuki, the runner at third, probably should have held because Butler was playing in. But Suzuki came home and Butler's throw was in time -- except Suzuki eluded catcher Sal Perez's first swipe, then reached his hand around Perez's second tag effort and touched home safely. "It was the right play by us and they still scored," Butler said. "(Suzuki) made a great slide, a great play."
The throw probably could have been more toward the third-base side of the plate, but it was a tough angle for Butler to do that. The run tied the game and sparked a three-run seventh for Minnesota. "If we get that out, the game probably changes there," Butler said. "But really, even though that play is all the talk, we just didn't score enough off Hughes. We had no margin for error."
-- Omar's slump. Infante has had a mostly rough second half. Since the All-Star break, Infante has hit just .204 with a .236 on-base percentage. On Saturday, Infante flied out twice, struck out once and never looked comfortable at the plate, at least until the eighth, when he singled sharply to center, forcing the exit of Twins right-hander Phil Hughes.
-- LoCain swinging at air. Infante had a tough night, but so did Lorenzo Cain, who struck out all four times up. Cain never even looked like he would put the ball in play, and really was the only Royals hitter who looked that overmatched. A day to forget for LoCain.
You can follow Jeffrey Flanagan on Twitter at @jflanagankc or email him at jeffreyflanagan6@gmail.com.
