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Twins-Royals Preview

Apr 22, 2010 - 10:33 PM By ANTHONY GIORNALISTA STATS Senior Writer

Minnesota (11-4) at Kansas City (6-9), 8:10 p.m. EDT

Aside from Carl Pavano's terrible outing, the Minnesota Twins had a mostly successful series against the Kansas City Royals this past weekend.

The Twins, opening a nine-game road trip Friday night, hope a change of venue will help Pavano avoid another poor performance against the Royals.

After a 6-3 homestand, Minnesota (11-5) won't be back at Target Field until May 3. The Twins had a chance to close the home stretch with their first sweep of the season, but lost 8-1 to Cleveland on Thursday to end a three-game set.

Poor pitching hurt Minnesota, just as it did in its attempt to sweep Kansas City on Sunday.

In the finale of that three-game series, Pavano (2-1, 4.96 ERA) gave up seven runs and 11 hits in 3 1-3 inning of a 10-5 loss. The right-hander, set to start the first of another three contests versus the Royals, is 4-5 with a 7.84 ERA in nine starts and one relief appearance against them.

Pavano, though, has won his last three starts at Kansas City, posting a 4.26 ERA and getting 21 runs to work with.

Joe Mauer is expected to be Pavano's batterymate after getting a day off. Minnesota had a quick turnaround after beating the Indians 6-0 on Wednesday night.

"You knew it was going to come up one of these days where he got beat up with some foul tips," manager Ron Gardenhire told the Twins' official website. "He's a little sore."

Mauer went 5 for 8 in the final two games of the last series against Kansas City. The Twins will again be facing Gil Meche (0-1, 11.57), who like Pavano endured a rough outing during that set.

Meche surrendered five runs and walked four in six innings of a 6-5 loss Saturday. Still, it was an improvement over his first start of the season, when the veteran right-hander gave up seven runs in 3 1-3 innings of an 8-6 defeat to Boston on April 11.

"Two games in a row where I can't get away from the big inning, both happening early in the ballgame," Meche said. "You've got to make better pitches. ... If you don't do that, you're going to pay for it."

Meche is 9-6 with a 4.79 ERA in 20 starts against the Twins.

Kansas City got a strong performance from ace Zach Greinke against Toronto on Wednesday, but needed a solo home run from Alex Gordon in the 10th inning to win 4-3.

It was Gordon's second hit since returning to the lineup Saturday. The third baseman missed the first 10 games with a broken right thumb.

Gordon was limited to 49 games in 2009 due to a hip injury, but had 31 homers, 71 doubles and 119 RBIs over the previous two seasons.

Catcher Jason Kendall enjoyed watching Gordon display some "unbelievable pop."

"You can tell things are starting to click for him a little bit and he's getting that timing back down," Kendall said.

First baseman Billy Butler added two hits for Kansas City. Butler is 11 for 23 with two homers and four doubles versus Pavano.