{"id":581616,"date":"2026-04-02T23:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581616\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T23:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:01:08","slug":"twins-5-1-royals-3-apr-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581616\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins 5-1 Royals (3 Apr, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — \u2014 Taj Bradley<\/a> pitched six innings of five-hit ball, Minnesota homered three times in the ninth inning to break open a close game, and the Twins beat the Kansas City Royals<\/a> 5-1 on Thursday to avoid a three-game series sweep.<\/p>\n

Bradley (1-0) struck out three and walked one while out-dueling Cole Ragans<\/a> (0-2), helping the Twins improve to 2-0 with him on the mound. Minnesota was winless in its other four games on a season-opening six-game trip through Baltimore and Kansas City.<\/p>\n

Kody Clemens<\/a> scored on an error by five-time Gold Glove-winning catcher Salvador Perez<\/a> in the second, and Byron Buxton<\/a> added a sacrifice fly off John Schreiber<\/a> in the eighth, before the Twins teed off against Royals reliever Steven Cruz<\/a> in the ninth.<\/p>\n

Matt Wallner<\/a> began the barrage with his homer to left, Clemens followed two batters late with his first of the season, and Josh Bell<\/a> gave the Twins their first back-to-back homers since last July with his shot off Cruz to right field.<\/p>\n

The only offense for Kansas City came in the eighth, when Maikel Garcia<\/a> and Bobby Witt Jr<\/a>. put runners on the corners with back-to-back singles, and Vinnie Pasquantino<\/a> hit a sacrifice fly. But after Perez grounded into a fielder’s choice, Twins reliever Taylor Rogers<\/a> struck out Jac Caglianone<\/a> with a sweeper out of the zone to leave the tying run on second base.<\/p>\n

The meager offense came one a day after the Royals piled up 13 runs in a win over the Twins.<\/p>\n

Ragans bounced back nicely from a dismal opening day in Atlanta, when the 2024 All-Star surrendered three homers in a 6-0 loss to the Braves. The Royals’ left-hander went six innings and allowed four hits and a walk while striking out eight.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

The Twins play their home opener Friday night against Tampa Bay with RHP Bailey Ober<\/a> (0-0, 6.75 ERA) on the mound. Kansas City continues its homestand against Milwaukee with RHP Michael Wacha<\/a> (0-0, 0.00) getting the start.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Mo. — \u2014 Taj Bradley pitched six innings of five-hit ball, Minnesota homered three times in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-581616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}