Noah Cameron continued his recent run of success and decided to dominate the Twins for a second start in a row. That allowed the Royals to win 2-1 despite having some struggles at the plate of their own.
We had a good old-fashioned pitcher’s duel between maybe not the most likely of starters. Both Noah Cameron and Dean Kremer were very effective. Kremer saw the minimum through three innings thanks to a double play and Noah only saw one over in that time frame thanks to a single from Ryan Jeffers in the first
inning. It was Kremer’s debut as a Minnesota Twin after he was acquired at the trade deadline. He availed himself well, matching his best start of the season back at the beginning of July by going 6 innings and only giving up 1 run.
Noah Cameron also gave up only 1 run, though his in part had to do with the defense behind him. In the 4th inning Josh Bell walked to lead off. Kody Clemens followed that with a groundball to second base that Michael Massey fielded in front of Bell who stopped and back-pedaled a bit. Massey decided to throw to first too late to get the out and Jac Caglianone couldn’t get the ball back to second in time, so they ended up with no outs. Then Royce Lewis bunted it well to the right side and got a single to load the bases. Cameron induced a double play, but the run from third scored and gave the Twins a 1-0 lead. A strikeout ended the inning.
The Royals first run came in the 5th which started out with back-to-back singles from Massey and Isaac Collins. Loftin tried to bunt them over but popped it a little too hard and the Twins were able to get the force at second leaving it first and third with one out. John Rave came up next and walked the bases loaded for Kyle Isbel. The Royals’ center fielder managed to left one deep enough to center to get the sac fly and the first run of the game for Kansas City. It would remain tied 1-1 into the 7th.
Kremer exited after 6 innings and it was starting to look like the two would duel to a draw, but Noah Cameron just kept on going. He took care of the 7th with a foul-out followed by two strike outs after which his offense decided maybe he deserved to be in line for the win. Michael Massey was up to lead off in the bottom half of the 7th when AJ Minter took over from the Twins’ bullpen. Minter grooved a cutter middle middle and Massey deposited it near the fountains (maybe in) in right field. Royals up 2-1.
Despite being over 90 pitches, Cameron came out for the 8th inning as well. Trevor Larnach, Ryan Kreidler, and Austin Martin all went down swinging as Noah put the exclamation point on the end of a stellar day. He struck out the final five Twins he faced to end with a line of 8IP, 2H, BB, ER, 9K. That is an impressive start, and it was his third impressive outing in a row. Hopefully, this portends great things to come from the young St. Joe native.
Bobby Witt Jr. tried to give the Royals another insurance run in the bottom of the 8th, but his home run was robbed.
That set up Steven Cruz who was sent out to close this one for KC. No one reached base and he struck out Clemens to seal the victory. It was an uneventful 9th inning, which for this team has been a fairly rare thing for this team when protecting a lead. The Royals take the series and go for the sweep tomorrow. They are 10-8 since the break and playing reasonably good baseball minus the travesty of a series in Colorado.
