Thome's 596th HR Lifts Twins Over Royals
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Jim Thome hit his 596th career home run and Joe Nathan picked up the save for the second day in a row to lift the Minnesota Twins to a 4-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Sunday.
Thome's tiebreaking three-run drive off Felipe Paulino soared into the upper deck in right-center field in the sixth inning, leaving him four shy of becoming the eighth player to hit 600 home runs.
Jeff Francoeur homered and Melky Cabrera added two hits for the Royals. Paulino (1-3) struck out eight in seven innings, yielding four runs and seven hits.
Brian Duensing (7-7) gave up three runs and seven hits in 6 1-3 innings for the Twins, who started a crucial 12-game homestand by taking three of four from the Royals.
Thome will turn 41 in August, and his 19th season in the big leagues has been a tough one. He's battled an oblique injury and a problem with a toe on his left foot, not to mention the aching back that has bothered him for the better part of the last decade.
On a sweltering day where the heat index climbed past 110 degrees, Thome looked plenty loose when he sent a 3-2 pitch from Paulino an estimated 490 feet into the stands for a 4-1 lead. He also became the 11th player to hit 500 homers in the American League, according to STATS, LLC.
Francoeur came back with a two-run shot of his own in the top of the seventh, but Glen Perkins pitched a perfect eighth and Nathan, who resumed his closer role when Matt Capps began to struggle, picked up his fifth save of the season.
It was a tough loss for Paulino, who has pitched well since joining the Royals at the end of May. Paulino hit 97 mph on the Target Field radar gun. He only walked one hitter, an intentional pass for Joe Mauer, who had two hits and an RBI.
The Royals made Duensing work through the first three innings.
The Twins left-hander needed 58 pitches to get to the fourth, giving up an RBI single to Alex Gordon to fall behind in the first inning. But he breezed through innings four, five and six, averaging just 10 pitches per frame to keep the Twins in it.
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire returned to the ballpark Sunday after missing Saturday's game with a chest cold that has bothered him for weeks. He played it safe by watching the game from the air-conditioned clubhouse, while bench coach Scott Ullger made the pitching changes.
NOTES: The Twins host the Indians for a doubleheader on Monday. Scott Baker will pitch Game 1 against Cleveland's David Huff. Anthony Swarzak will face Fausto Carmona in the nightcap. ... Royals 1B Eric Hosmer made a terrific, over-the-shoulder catch of a foul pop up by Danny Valencia in the seventh inning. ... Gardenhire and SS Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who is Japanese, had a bet on the women's World Cup championship. "I wish I could trash talk in Japanese, because he would hear all of it," Gardenhire cracked.
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