Royce Lewis, Twins struggle with RISP in shutout loss to Royals

The Twins came into Saturday's game having scored 24 runs over a three-game winning streak, but their offense went quiet in a 2-0 loss to the Royals at Target Field. They weren't dominated — they just couldn't come up with a big hit to capitalize on any of their scoring opportunities.

Minnesota had traffic on the bases all night, but not a single baserunner came around to score. The Twins left 10 runners on and went 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position. They didn't have a 1-2-3 inning on offense until doing so in the eighth and ninth innings against the Royals' top bullpen arms. The end result was the Twins' eighth shutout loss of the season (and first since July 1).

The primary culprit, by far, was cleanup hitter Royce Lewis, who stranded seven baserunners, four of which were in scoring position. All four times he came up to the plate, there was a runner at either second or third base. One hit from Lewis could've swung the game, but he was unable to deliver.

In the first inning, Lewis struck out against Royals starter Noah Cameron with a runner on third and two outs. In the third, the Twins had two on with no outs before Luke Keaschall grounded out and Lewis bounced into a 6-4-3 double play. There were two on with one out in the fifth when Keaschall and Lewis flew out. And in the seventh, Hunter Harvey struck out Lewis with two on and two outs to preserve the Royals' 1-0 lead.

Lewis was hot coming out of the All-Star break, raising his OPS above .700 after a very slow start, but it's back down to .659 after a 7-for-40 stretch in his last 10 games.

Cameron scattered six hits and two walks over 5.2 scoreless innings on Saturday. Twins starter Bailey Ober had easily his best outing since May, giving up just one run on four hits and a walk over six encouraging frames. The only damage off of Ober came when Kyle Isbel singled and Maikel Garcia doubled two outs in the third. The Royals then wouldn't score until they added an insurance run off of Erasmo Ramirez in the top of the ninth.

Austin Martin (two hits) and Ryan Jeffers (three) combined for five of the Twins' eight hits, all of which were singles. Keaschall extended his hitting streak to 11 games to begin his career, which is two away from tying a franchise record. Carson McCusker, recalled from Triple-A due to Matt Wallner going on the paternity list, picked up his second career hit.

Relievers Angel Zerpa, Harvey, Lucas Erceg, and Carlos Estevez finished off the shutout for the Royals (58-59). The Twins fell to 55-61 with the loss.

The rubber match of the series is at 12:05 p.m. CT on Sunday. It'll be televised on the Roku channel.

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