By MATT PIKE
Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Randy Dobnak threw seven scoreless innings and earned his first major league victory in five years as the Royals beat the Minnesota Twins 4-0 at Target Field evening up the three game series between the two.
Dobnak hadn't won a game in the big leagues since May 21st, 2021, when he was with the Twins. He made 21 starts for Minnesota between 2019 and 2021, before spending most of the next four seasons pitching for Triple-A St. Paul. The Twins sent him to Detroit at the trade deadline last season. Dobnak, now 1-0 on the season, gave up four hits and a walk while striking out four. He never allowed a runner to advance past second base and threw three 1-2-3 innings in the shutout effort.
Tyler Tolbert opened the scoring in the third inning, leading off the inning with his second home run of the season. In the fourth inning, after Salvador Perez led off with a triple, his first since 2022, then with one out a sacrifice fly from Nick Loftin drove in Perez to extend the lead, putting Kansas City up 2-0 through four innnings.
Tolbert reached first on a forceout in the fifth and scored on a double from Carter Jensen. After Lane Thomas grounded out, moving Jensen to third base for the second out, a single from Jac Caglianone scored Jensen, capping the scoring for the Royals
Tolbert was 2-for-3 with a double and the home run, driving in one run and scoring two as he also walked once. Loftin was also 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI while Jensen was 1-for-5 with a double and an RBI. Perez was 2-for-5 with a triple and a run scored, but also struck out three times.
Kansas City and Minnesota wrap up their series tomorrow. Noah Cameron (5-8, 4.93 ERA, 100K's) will return to the mound as a starter for the Royals against Bailey Ober (7-3, 4.56 ERA, 60K's) for the Twins. First pitch will be joined at 12:40pm on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
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