Bobby Witt Jr. drove in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly in the seventh inning as the Kansas City Royals rallied for a 3-2 victory over the visiting Minnesota Twins on Thursday afternoon.
Witt went 2-for-3 with a double, a stolen base and a run scored for Kansas City, which picked up its third win in the four-game series.
Daniel Lynch IV (2-0) picked up the victory in relief, walking one and striking out two to close out the top of the seventh. Carlos Estevez pitched around a hit batter and a single during a scoreless ninth to pick up his fourth save.
Ty France homered and Willi Castro and Edouard Julien each doubled for Minnesota, which suffered its fourth loss in the last five games. Cole Sands (1-1) suffered the loss, allowing two runs on two hits over 2/3 of an inning. He also hit a batter and struck out one.
The Royals, held to just three hits in a 4-0 loss to Minnesota on Wednesday night, jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning with three consecutive hits. Witt started the rally with a one-out single to left and advanced to second on a bloop single by Vinnie Pasquantino. Witt then scored on a single by Salvador Perez.
Minnesota tied it up at 1-1 in the second inning when France led off with a 411-foot home run to left-center field.
The Twins went on top in the sixth thanks to an RBI single by Ryan Jeffers off reliever John Schreiber, driving in Trevor Larnach, who had walked and advanced to second on a walk by France.
Kansas City, though, responded in the home half of the seventh, plating two runs to jump ahead 3-2 against Sands.
After Freddy Fermin was hit by a pitch and advanced to third on a single by Drew Waters, Jonathan India drove in the first run with a line-drive single to left. Witt followed with a sacrifice fly to deep center to drive in Waters for what proved to be the game-winning RBI.
