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Twins-Royals Preview

Jul 26, 2010 - 12:39 AM By BRETT HUSTON STATS Writer

Minnesota (52-46) at Kansas City (42-55), 8:10 p.m. EDT

The Minnesota Twins had no problems scoring runs over the weekend, winning three of four as their hot hitting since the All-Star break has showed no signs of slowing.

It's been quite a while since they've had trouble offensively against the Kansas City Royals.

Minnesota's production at the plate has paved the way to six consecutive series victories against Kansas City, and it'll try to beat Royals ace Zack Greinke for a third time this season in Monday night's opener at Kauffman Stadium.

Justin Morneau hasn't played since July 7 and Joe Mauer is hitting a pedestrian .260 since then, but Minnesota (53-46) has been an a roll at the plate since the break.

The Twins are batting a major league-best .326 in 11 contests following the All-Star game, and after finishing with 14 hits in a 7-2 win at Baltimore on Saturday, had 19 in Sunday's 10-4 victory in which three regulars rested while Orlando Hudson was officially placed on the disabled list.

Delmon Young, Jim Thome and Jason Repko had solo homers, while Jason Kubel hit a grand slam.

"We got home runs, some big hits and had a good day offensively with a couple of guys down," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "Made it a lot of fun."

There's no reason to believe the Twins' offense will slow down in Kansas City. Minnesota has averaged 7.4 runs in winning 14 of its last 18 games against the Royals (42-56), batting .308 with 22 homers in that span.

Michael Cuddyer (six homers, 21 RBIs) and Mauer (.400, 13 RBIs) have been the catalysts versus Kansas City, but the All-Star catcher won't be especially looking forward to facing Greinke (6-9, 3.59 ERA). Mauer has seven hits in 32 at-bats (.219) against the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner.

Despite holding Mauer down, Greinke hasn't been able to boast similar success against the rest of the Twins. He's 2-6 with a 4.31 ERA in 13 starts in the series, including 0-2 with a 7.20 ERA in a pair of outings at Target Field this season.

Greinke's loss at Minnesota on June 8 raised his ERA above 4.00 for the first time since Aug. 9, 2008, but he's pitched much better of late. The right-hander surrendered two runs and struck out nine over eight innings in a 5-2 win over Toronto on Wednesday, improving to 5-1 with a 2.89 ERA in his last seven starts.

"The end result looked great," Greinke said. "It's not like I could throw the ball exactly where I wanted. I know I could throw a strike, but not exactly where I wanted. It was good, but it was not like locked-in command. The stuff was real good, though which helps get away with that."

The Twins counter with a pitcher capable of matching zeroes with Greinke. That's exactly what Francisco Liriano (8-7, 3.54) did Wednesday, holding Cleveland to six hits over seven innings and striking out eight in a 6-0 win.

Liriano is just 1-2 with a 7.50 ERA in three starts at Kauffman Stadium, as the Royals are hitting .313 against him.

Kansas City still has baseball's top batting average (.281), but that hasn't helped much lately. The Royals have been held to 3.8 runs per game in losing 10 of 13 after dropping Sunday's finale 12-6 at Yankee Stadium.

"We couldn't keep them off base, and we couldn't keep them from driving in the runs," said outfielder Scott Podsednik, who homered twice.

Kansas City is 7-35 when it fails to score four runs. It's 4-24 against Minnesota when held to three or fewer since 2007.