KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)– After watching the Royals lose four straight, Edinson Volquez was so focused on helping them out of their funk that the starting pitcher forgot something rather important.
“Tickets for my wife,” he said with a grin.
Good thing he remembered while warming in the bullpen. She got to watch Volquez bounce back from a lousy start to go seven sharp innings in a 4-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night.
Eric Hosmer hit a three-run double and Kendrys Morales added an RBI double in the first inning, and that was all Volquez (13-7) and the Kansas City bullpen needed. Wade Davis pitched a perfect eighth inning and Greg Holland tossed a flawless ninth for his 30th save.
The only runs Volquez allowed were consecutive RBI hits by Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer.
“I thought he was great,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “His last start he was out of whack, all over the place. He was much more mechanically sound tonight.”
Kyle Gibson (9-10) recovered from a brutal start to last eight innings for his first career complete game, but the Twins’ offense was unable to bail him out. Gibson’s first six batters reached, and Hosmer and Morales staked Kansas City to an early 4-0 lead.
“You can lose it in the first, but you can’t win it in the first. Those are situations that kind of speed up on you,” Gibson said. “I’m trying not to get too emotionally up in what happened, just take it one batter at a time and move on.”
The streaking Twins, who began the day just 1 1/2 games back of Texas for the final AL wild card, tried to mount a comeback after the Royals took their early lead.
Byron Buxton singled with one out in the third, later scoring on Dozier’s base hit, and Mauer followed with an RBI double to make it 4-2. But using some veteran guile, Volquez managed to get Trevor Plouffe to ground out and preserve his lead.
Plouffe also grounded into inning-ending double plays in the first and sixth, as the Twins failed to get a runner to second base the rest of the night.
Kansas City was suddenly having a similarly difficult time against Gibson, who allowed only two hits after his disastrous first inning. Both of them were to Alex Gordon, a two-out double in the second and a single in the fifth.
“I think that’s the first time I’ve been attacked like that,” Gibson said of the first inning. “Most teams come out taking, seeing if my sinker is going to stay in the zone.”
Gibson allowed six hits and walked two while throwing 101 pitches.
“This guy has arguably one of the best two-seamers in the league, and it wasn’t there in the first inning,” Yost said. “It was there in the second inning through the eighth.”
