Jorge Soler blasts two homers as Royals win third straight, clinch series against Twins
Kansas City Royals manager Mike Matheny played in the majors for 13 years against the best the game has to offer, and he still watches what Jorge Soler can do when he hits a baseball and thinks, Man, it must be fun to hit a ball like that.
Matheny has made it one of his goals to get Soler to crack a small smile after he smokes a ball into the night sky with a quick, compact, powerful swing like few others in the game can.
On Saturday night, Matheny got to see Soler do it twice, once as part of the Royals’ second six-run inning in three games.
The Royals rode that fourth-inning explosion to a 9-6 win over the Minnesota Twins at Kauffman Stadium to clinch the series victory, give the Royals a three-game win streak and put them in position to sweep the three-game set with a win Sunday afternoon.
Soler smashed two home runs that traveled at least 440 feet apiece, drove in four of the first eight runs for the Royals (6-10) and three of the runs in a pivotal six-run fourth inning. He now has five home runs this season and three in his last three games.
When told of Matheny’s comments about him smiling more, Soler said the reason he doesn’t smile much after home runs is because he doesn’t want to disrespect anybody on the field. But Soler didn’t withhold many smiles in his postgame news conference with assistant strength and conditioning coach Luis Perez serving as translator from Spanish to English.
“We took a stand, and we decided to go out there and fight,” Soler said of the fourth inning. “We put a bunch of hits together, and scoring all those runs was a big stand.”
Salvador Perez went 3 for 5 with a home run, and second baseman Nicky Lopez went 2 for 4 with a home run and two RBIs. Adalberto Mondesi collected a hit, two stolen bases and scored a run. Eight of the nine players in the Royals’ starting lineup had at least one hit.
Hard-throwing right-handed reliever Trevor Rosenthal pitched the final 1 1/3 innings to earn his third save of the season.
The Royals’ big fourth inning swung the momentum of the game not only on the scoreboard, but emotionally. They responded immediately after the Twins (10-5) rallied for a four-run top half of the inning.
The Royals started the inning with six consecutive hits, three of them sailing over the outfield walls to the sounds of celebration from the home dugout. They didn’t make an out until the eighth batter of the inning, when Mondesi flew out to left field.
After Maikel Franco led off with a single to left field, Lopez smacked his second career homer on a line drive to right-center field that touched down shy of the fountain.
“I wasn’t trying to hit a home run,” Lopez said. “I was trying to hit the 4-hole and get the guy to third base. He hung a slider. Skip said, ‘You weren’t even trying to hit a homer. That’s the beauty of that.’”
Brett Phillips followed with a bunt single. Then Whit Merrifield singled just past the reach of second baseman Luis Arraez.
That’s when Soler blasted an 0-2 slider 448 feet to center field for his seventh career multi-homer game and first since he did it in September of last year against the Twins.
“I was looking for that pitch,” Soler said. “I got rung up on a slider I missed. I was disappointed that I missed that one because I was looking for it. The second pitch was a fastball. Then he came back with the slider, and I was ready for it. I was looking for it from the beginning.
“Thank God he threw it again — he made that mistake and I didn’t miss that time.”
The next batter, Perez, crushed a solo homer to left-center for his third home run of the season. Perez went back-to-back with Soler for the second time this season. They also pulled the double-trouble routine in Cleveland on July 25.
Twins starting pitcher and former Royals farmhand Jake Odorizzi made his first start of the season. An All-Star in 2019, Odorizzi began the season on the injured list with a right intercostal strain.
Odorizzi, who made his MLB debut with the Royals in September 2012, was part of the trade — along with Wil Myers — that brought Wade Davis and James Shields to Kansas City in December 2012.
The Royals made Odorizzi throw 29 pitches to get through the first inning. They scored the game’s first run on a Ryan O’Hearn single up the middle that drove in Merrifield, but they left the bases loaded when Franco hit an inning-ending grounder to shortstop. Odorizzi pitched three innings.
Soler’s first home run of the night gave the Royals a 2-0 advantage in the bottom of the third before the Twins jumped in front with a four-run fourth. Slugger Nelson Cruz smashed his fourth homer of the year to start the inning, and Byron Buxton added a three-run homer on a 3-2 pitch with two outs to put the Twins ahead 4-2.
Royals pitcher Danny Duffy had allowed one home run in his previous three starts, but he gave up two in that inning. Buxton has now homered in three consecutive games.
After the Royals responded with their six-run fourth inning, the Twins pulled within two runs, 8-6, in the seventh when Max Kepler homered off Ian Kennedy. But Mondesi got the run back when he hit an infield single, stole second and third and scored on a wild pitch.
The Royals’ three-game win streak comes on the heels of a six-game losing streak.
“You go on a skid and you start to doubt,” Matheny said. “You have to fight that off. Keep doing your piece and then hand it off to the next guy. That inning could sink most teams, when you give up four, but what a way to respond.”
This story was originally published August 8, 2020 at 10:10 PM with the headline "Jorge Soler blasts two homers as Royals win third straight, clinch series against Twins."
