Bring out the brooms! Kansas City Royals beat Minnesota Twins for 1st sweep of season

The Kansas City Royals brought out the brooms for the first time in 2023, defeating the Minnesota Twins 2-1 for their first series sweep of the season.

Manager Matt Quatraro had previously told his team “nobody can keep us from winning three straight ‘till August” and the Royals proved that true by knocking off the American League Central leaders.

“These guys — you see it every day — they work,” Quatraro said. “They come out and play hard. To be rewarded with some wins, it’s something that’s really nice to see and for them to feel. Especially going into an off-day, nothing tomorrow, and these guys, they deserve it.”

Royals left-hander Ryan Yarbrough pitched seven innings for his longest outing of the season. He threw 56 of 78 pitches for strikes, worked around seven hits and struck out five, allowing just one run.

The Royals activated Yarbrough from the 60-day injured list back on July 8. He has cruised on the mound in his comeback from taking a line drive to the face on May 7.

With Sunday’s start, Yarbrough lowered his July earned-run average to 2.19 and posted 15 strikeouts to just two walks in the month. Three of his four July starts were quality — minimum six innings, maximum three earned runs — and he fell just one out shy of a fourth back on July 19.

“He makes you make tough decisions at the plate,” Quatraro said. “He cuts it, sinks it, change up, breaking ball, soft contact — all this stuff that we knew he was capable of doing, and these last however many starts since he’s been back, they’ve all been the same.”

Freddy Fermin’s sixth home run of the season gave the Royals a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second. He took a two-strike splitter from Kenta Maeda on the inner half of the plate and drilled it 420 feet (102.6 mph exit velocity) out to left.

Minnesota’s Matt Wallner answered in the top of the third, hammering a Yarbrough curveball 445 feet (113.7 mph) to right for a solo home run, his fifth this season.

The Royals retook the lead in the bottom of the third on Maikel Garcia’s scorched one-out double to left. The 105.5 mph hit, his 15th double of the season, scored Nicky Lopez, who had singled to left field right before.

The Royals improved to 32-75 as 13,752 fans attended the series finale at Kauffman Stadium.

Missed previous games of the series?

Game 1: Walk-off grand slam! Bobby Witt Jr. has special moment in Kansas City Royals win

Game 2: Royals set season high for hits in win over Twins, clinch rare series victory at home

Here are more notables from Sunday’s game:

Call to the pen

Quatraro said he considered sending Yarbrough back out for the eighth inning, but with the top of the order coming up he went to the bullpen.

Righty Dylan Coleman pitched a scoreless eighth, throwing nine of 14 pitches for strikes and striking out two.

“I really was excited to get him an opportunity for clean inning,” Quatraro said. “It was in a leverage situation, and I think that might have been the first opportunity to do that, especially in a game like that, that was a pitcher’s duel-type of game. So, I liked that opportunity for him, and with his stuff, he plays against righties and lefties. As we know, when he commands it, he’s gonna get people out.”

Carlos Hernandez handled the ninth; he threw 10 of 19 pitches for strikes, walked one and struck out two. It was the righty’s first career save.

“Other than he got a pitch violation to start the inning — I wasn’t a big fan of that,” Quatraro said. “So we gotta work through that. Can’t afford to be giving away strikes, especially when you have good hitters coming up like that. But yeah, he responded just the way he’s been throwing. We’ve opened him, we’ve pitched him in the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and he’s he’s been very good for us.”

Who’s on first?

Lopez made his first career start at first base Sunday and defended without a hitch while going 1-for-3 and scoring the decisive run. His pick on a low throw from Bobby Witt Jr. in the top of the sixth saved an error and potentially prevented a run.

He’s the third Royals player to man first base since Nick Pratto was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left groin strain on Friday.

Salvador Perez made his first start of the season at first on Friday and Matt Duffy started there Saturday.

Up next: The Royals begin a three-game series with the New York Mets at 7:10 p.m. Tuesday. Righty Zack Grienke will start against lefty Jose Quintana in the opener.