MINNEAPOLIS — Zebby Matthews threw five crisp innings to win his major league debut for the Minnesota Twins, who hit Seth Lugo hard to hand the All-Star right-hander his worst start of the season and beat the Kansas City Royals 13-3 on Tuesday night.
Matthews (1-0) allowed two runs on five hits with no walks and five strikeouts, the latest and most meaningful feat for the 24-year-old right-hander who started the season in Class A.
Matt Wallner and Jose Miranda led the barrage against Lugo (13-7) from the middle of the batting order, and Max Kepler had a three-run homer and Kyle Farmer hit a two-run shot once the Twins reached the bullpen. Minnesota kept pace with AL Central leader Cleveland, still trailing by 3½ games. Kansas City fell six games back.
The Twins (67-52) and Royals (65-55) control the second and third wild-card spots, respectively.
The first four batters reached against Lugo, the major league wins leader who endured by far the shortest of his 25 starts this year. Already trailing 5-2, he gave up three hits and a walk to start the fifth before being pulled. Lugo had logged at least six innings in all but four of his turns until this.
Lugo was charged with nine hits, eight runs, two walks with four strikeouts. One run was unearned due to a throwing error on third baseman Maikel Garcia that put Miranda on and gave the Twins a fourth consecutive batter to reach base to start their first inning.
Christian Vázquez also homered for the Twins, who got three hits and two RBIs from Miranda, and three runs plus two hits and a walk from Wallner in their 15-hit attack — eight for extra bases. Wallner started the game with a leaping catch against the left field wall to steal a home run from Michael Massey.
Matthews didn't need much help after that. The eighth-round 2022 draft pick out of Western Carolina induced a steady stream of routine groundballs and showed off his stellar control. In 102 combined innings over four levels this season, Matthews has just seven walks and 119 strikeouts.
The Twins have won 18 of their last 20 games against the Royals at Target Field, a stretch of dominance during which they've outscored them 123-56. The Twins are 7-2 against the Royals overall this year.
TRAINER'S ROOM
Twins CF Byron Buxton was held out of the lineup with a discomfort in his right hip that prompted his early removal from the game on Monday, but an MRI test came back clean so the 10th-year veteran's status remained day to day.
UP NEXT
Royals: LHP Cole Ragans (9-7, 3.27 ERA) will pitch on Wednesday afternoon.
Twins: RHP Louie Varland (0-4, 6.46 ERA) was on track to start the final game of the series. He pitched 4 2/3 innings on Friday in the second half of a doubleheader sweep of Cleveland as the 27th player.
