Visitor:  Minnesota Twins

Home:  Kansas City Royals

Date:  April 12, 2008

 

Scoring:

Team                 1       2       3               4       5       6               7       8       9               R      H      E

MIN         0       1       0               0       0       0               1       0       0               2       9       1

KC                    0       0       0               0       0       0               0       0       0               0       5       1

 

Visitor playmakers: 

RF Jason Kubel, CF Denard Span

 

Home playmakers: 

1B Billy Butler

 

Network:  FSN Kansas City

Announcers:  Ryan Lefebvre, Paul Splittorff

 

Pregame:  Yes – Royals Live

Postgame:  Yes – Royals Live

Commercials:  No

 

Grade:  A

 

Notes:  Fighting off numbing cold and gales that dropped the wind chill into the mid-30s, Bonser combined with three relievers to beat Kansas City 2-0 on a frigid Saturday night and hand the punchless Royals a second straight shutout.

 

Since scoring a run in the first inning Thursday night in a 6-1 loss to the New York Yankees, the Royals have gone 26 innings without scoring. Livan Hernandez pitched seven scoreless innings in a 5-0 victory on Friday night.

 

Bonser (1-2) pitched six innings and Jason Kubel homered and scored twice for the Twins. Bonser did not give up a hit until Ross Gload singled with one out in the fifth. Constantly blowing into his hands, he allowed three hits, two walks and struck out four.

 

Kubel hit a solo shot in the third off Brett Tomko (1-1), who gave up six hits and two runs in six-plus innings, with one walk, one strikeout and a painful stop of a hard grounder off his left leg that he somehow turned into an out.

 

Joe Nathan worked the ninth for his fourth save in four opportunities. Relievers Matt Guerrier and Pat Neshek each went one inning for the Twins.

 

The Twins got one run on four hits in the seventh and left the bases loaded. Kubel singled leading off and went to third on a perfectly executed hit-and-run that caught second baseman Mark Grudzielanek leaning the wrong way on Brendan Harris' ground ball in the hole.

 

Denard Span's RBI single brought Kubel home, then the Twins loaded the bases on Nick Punto's bunt single. After reliever Ramon Ramirez struck out Carlos Gomez, Ron Mahay retired Matt Tolbert on a popup and got Joe Mauer on a called third strike.

 

Justin Morneau hit a liner back to Tomko's lower left leg in the fourth. Tomko, from his knees facing the outfield, made an awkward backhanded toss toward first. Gload, stretching out full length on his stomach and keeping a toe on the bag, made the catch for the out. After making a few warmup tosses, Tomko stayed in the game.

 

Kansas City's Billy Butler singled in the sixth, extending his hitting streak to a career-best 11 games.

 

Game notes

•       The Royals still lead the AL in ERA (2.82) and lead the majors in fielding average at .995. They've committed two errors in 11 games.

•       The Twins also shut out the Royals twice last year.

•       Buoyed by a powder blue jersey giveaway, the crowd was 36,300, a sellout.

 

Running time:  2:56 (2 discs)