Royals rally past Twins 4-3; Tyler Duffey gives up two homers in sixth inning

KANSAS CITY, MO. – Tyler Duffey has two losses to his name through his four outings this season, and both happened in major letdown fashion.

In Tuesday night's 4-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals, Duffey followed up Joe Smith, who inherited a one-out, bases-loaded situation from starter Chris Archer but preserved the Twins' one-run lead by inducing a double play from phenom Bobby Witt Jr. on his second pitch.

Yet when Duffey took the mound in the sixth inning, that lead shifted to the Royals because the reliever gave up a pair of solo home runs.

"When Joe comes in and does a job like he did right there, it's a huge, big moment for the team," Duffey said. "And then to come in and do what I did, it's frustrating, to put it nicely."

Duffey had a similar implosion in the season-opening series against Seattle. In the second game of the season, Byron Buxton rallied the Twins to a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning with a two-run homer, only for Duffey to allow the Mariners to score twice in the ninth and win.

In his four games through four innings this season, Duffey has allowed four runs, seven hits, including two homers, and a walk, only striking out three for a 9.00 ERA and 0-2 record.

Archer — who went 4⅓ innings with two runs, four hits, three walks and five strikeouts — summed the game up as just three pitches the Twins would like to redo.

Archer claimed one of those when he gave up a first-pitch home run to Salvador Perez, throwing the ball pretty much dead-center in the strike zone to the 2021 major league home run leader with 48.

Duffey had the other two on Perez's second home run, followed by Hunter Dozier's go-ahead solo smash.

Smith only threw two pitches but both were strikes and earned a lot of praise and thanks from Archer, who loaded the bases and walked in a run in his final inning that cut the Twins lead to 3-2. But Smith cleaned up that mess.

"That's why he's on the team. That's why we signed him. That's why he's been playing for 15-plus years," Archer said. "… I was super pumped. Like beyond. Because the game … could have went in a completely different direction and rely on the vet to get the job done.

"It was huge."

Hitting-wise, the Twins took the lead in the fourth inning when Nick Gordon hit a triple to the right-center field wall before Gio Urshela brought him home on a base hit.

Urshela then scored himself when Gary Sanchez hit an RBI double to the same spot as Gordon to make it 2-0.

Luis Arraez then re-established that two-run lead, chipped away at by Perez's first homer, in the fifth, smacking a leadoff double before Carlos Correa hit an RBI single.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the weather — light rain with some wind — was on the home team's side.

"It felt like we actually played pretty good and hit balls hard the entire night and continually drilled balls into that breeze out there that … weren't going to go anywhere to right-center field," Baldelli said.

"… If you hit a ball in the air to left field, you were going to get a little help. And if you hit a ball to right field, you really didn't have much of a chance.

"I was very happy with the at-bats that we had. If we hit balls like that every game, we're going to win almost every one of the games that we play."