Pinch hitter Edouard Julien led off the bottom of the eighth inning with a tiebreaking homer to help the Minnesota Twins notch an 8-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Monday night in Minneapolis.
Julien hammered a first-pitch fastball from Royals reliever Taylor Clarke (1-3) over the wall in right center as Minnesota improved to 7-1 against Kansas City this season. Julien's fifth homer of the season started a five-run outburst.
Byron Buxton drove in two runs and Carlos Correa had four of the Twins' 14 hits.
Maikel Garcia and Nick Pratto homered for Kansas City. The Royals had failed to go deep in each of their previous seven games.
Minnesota's Joe Ryan struck out nine in six innings. He gave up two runs and six hits with one walk.
Ryan's bid to improve to 6-0 in six career starts against the Royals was short-circuited when Pratto homered off the right field foul pole to lead off the eighth against Brent Headrick (2-0) to tie the score at 3. It was Pratto's sixth homer of the season.
After Julien's homer, Minnesota's assault included Michael A. Taylor's safety-squeeze bunt that brought home a run and run-scoring singles by Max Kepler, Correa and Alex Kirilloff.
Bobby Witt Jr. added an RBI double in the ninth for the Royals.
Kansas City's Austin Cox gave up three runs and seven hits over 4 2/3 innings. He struck out four and walked two.
Garcia led off the game by slamming the first pitch from Ryan over the fence in left. It was Garcia's third homer of the season.
The Twins tied the score in the bottom of the inning as Correa doubled, moved to third on Donovan Solano's single and scored on Buxton's sacrifice fly.
Minnesota took a 2-1 lead in the second on Taylor's RBI single.
Pratto lined an RBI single off the wall in right in the third to tie it at 2.
Buxton's long sacrifice fly to center with the bases loaded in the fifth gave the Twins a 3-2 lead.
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