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Slowey, Mauer lead Twins over Royals

Aug 9, 2008 - 5:04 AM By Patrick Madden PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- The Minnesota Twins continued their recent dominance of the Kansas City Royals, rolling to a 4-1 victory Friday behind Kevin Slowey's strong outing.

Minnesota has won seven of its last eight contests in Kansas City and nine of 13 overall.

Slowey (8-8) allowed one run and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings to notch his second victory of the season against Kansas City. He struck out two and did not issue a walk for the 16th time in 29 career starts.

"We knew we had to make some good pitches early and give our offense a chance to start early, which we did," Slowey said. "We put up three runs early, which helps out a lot, and the defense made some great plays, too. ... It's just a little reminder that you don't have pitch perfect, (the defense will) make some plays behind you."

"Slowey pitched good enough," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He had to battle. They made him throw a lot of pitches."

Craig Breslow, Jesse Crain, Dennys Reyes and Matt Guerrier combined to work 2 1/3 scoreless innings to bridge the gap to closer Joe Nathan, who wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to post his 31st save of the season.

"I know we've had our struggles on the road, but these guys are gamers and we needed a lot of big outs tonight from them, and we got them," Gardenhire said of his team, which is 25-30 away from home.

Royals starter Kyle Davies (5-3) allowed three runs and three hits in 2 1/3 innings, his second-shortest outing of the season. He walked five and struck out two in having his personal two-game winning streak snapped.

"I couldn't throw the ball over the plate consistently," Davies said. "The first inning went fine, I threw nine strikes in the first inning where I wanted (to throw them). In the second inning, I couldn't locate the ball. I was just thinking too much. As a young starting pitcher, you have to concentrate on making your pitches. I got into a rut and couldn't locate the ball."

Joe Mauer delivered an RBI single in the third to open the scoring and Justin Morneau followed with a base hit to load the bases against Davies. Jason Kubel plated a run with a grounder on which shortstop Mike Aviles made a throwing error, allowing Mauer to come home and increase the Twins' bulge to 3-0.

"I can't explain it," Royals manager Trey Hillman said. "(Davies) didn't locate pitches. He had a fairly good 15-pitch first inning, got them three up, three down. Then he couldn't locate."

Mauer also lifted a sacrifice fly in the ninth to cap the scoring.

"When you have opportunities like that, you've got to capitalize on them," said Minnesota's Denard Span, who had two hits. "The pitching bailed us out and we got a victory. That's the most important thing."

Kansas City got on the board in the sixth, when David DeJesus laced an RBI single. Aviles tied a career high with four hits and Billy Butler added two for the Royals, who did not record an extra-base hit for the second game in a row.