Chris Archer's struggles continue as Twins fall to Kansas City 7-3

Chris Archer hasn't been as effective as the Twins hoped this year, and hasn't recaptured the form that once made him a Cy Young Award candidate and twice an All-Star. But on Saturday, he was far more unlucky than un-good.

Archer gave up five runs and seven hits over four innings as the Twins lost for the third time in four days, 7-3 to Kansas City at Target Field. But there's a more-than-plausible scenario in which only one run scores and Archer — who still has only recorded one fifth-inning out in his nine starts this season — delivers another inning or two to preserve a weary bullpen.

A one-hopper that kicked away, a pitch in the dirt that took a weird bounce, a routine throw that pulled the first baseman off the bag — any of those doesn't happen, and the Royals offense is vulnerable.

Heck, Archer gave up a run because of the padding on the outfield wall.

"It's baseball. Sometimes the ball doesn't bounce your way," Archer said, comparing his irritation to that of Byron Buxton, who endured an 0-for-30 slump this past week despite several hard-hit balls. "It's frustrating, but one thing that Buck and I have been talking about is being process-oriented. If you keep hitting the baseball hard, they're going to fall. And if you keep making pitches, that soft contact is typically going to be an out."

Trevor Larnach homered into the Royals bullpen, and Ryan Jeffers hit a pinch-hit, two-run single that ended the Twins' 0-for-10 streak of failure with the bases loaded. But the Twins allowed seven runs for the second straight day.

Bobby Witt Jr. collected three doubles and drove in two runs, giving the rookie seven extra-base blasts among his eight hits against the Twins this year. His third-inning double was a hint of what was to come, especially after Archer retired the first two hitters on dribblers that didn't travel 70 feet combined. A two-out single by Andrew Benintendi brought up Witt, who sailed a fly ball over left fielder Nick Gordon's head.

The ball promptly got stuck under the padding on the wall.

A normal bounce would have kept Benintendi on third base. Instead, Gordon had to race to the wall to retrieve the ball, enabling Benintendi to beat the relay throw from Carlos Correa.

"A ball gets stuck under the wall, that's part of the game," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said with a shrug. "We've got to deal with those things and just keep playing hard and finding ways to win."

They found ways to lose an inning later, when Hunter Dozier hit a one-out comebacker that Archer got a glove on but couldn't handle. The veteran righthander responded by winning a nine-pitch battle with Carlos Santana for a strikeout. But as Emmanuel Rivera batted, a slider squirted outside that catcher Gary Sanchez knocked down but couldn't control. Dozier moved up to second base on the wild pitch, then scored when Rivera hit a blooper to shallow right.

Nicky Lopez followed with a routine grounder to second baseman Jorge Polanco, whose throw pulled Luis Arraez off the base for an error. With his pitch count for the inning nearing 30, Archer left a 1-0 fastball to Whit Merrifield high and over the middle, and Merrifield ricocheted it off the right-field wall, turning what could have been a scoreless inning into a three-run — and decisive — inning, his last.

BOXSCORE: Kansas City 7, Twins 3

Juan Minaya relieved in the fifth, the Royals added on two more runs, and the Twins, despite loading the bases in the ninth, couldn't summon any good fortune of their own. Kyle Garlick's bid for a tying grand slam was caught by Merrifield on the warning track.

"I was hoping to make better pitches all around, especially to Merrifield. I was really focused on picking up my teammate in that spot," Archer said. "So yeah, it's frustrating. I wanted to do better."