Kansas City got a strong Seth Lugo start and a stolen run, and still left Target Field on the wrong end of another one-run night.
Alex Lange needed one more out on Tuesday night in Minneapolis.
The Royals led 2-1 with two outs in the ninth and two Twins aboard, and then Royce Lewis tripled on a sharp fly ball to right field, scoring Victor Caratini and Brooks Lee to end it 3-2.
Manager Matt Quatraro did not soften the moment afterward.
"[Lange] battles back to get two outs," Quatraro said. "So it's a really devastating loss."
Lange owned it as well, saying, "It's most disappointing to let your teammates down after they battled their [tails] off for nine innings."
The Ninth Inning
Lange entered for the ninth and gave up a leadoff single to Caratini, then a lineout, a walk to Lee and a strikeout of Ryan Kreidler before Lewis ended everything with one swing.
The finish wasted a start that deserved better, because Lugo threw six innings of one-run ball on just 84 pitches.
His defense helped him constantly, as MLB.com noted the Royals turned five double plays, a season high across the majors this year.
"Double plays are a pitcher's best friend. Especially with some of the power they have in the lineup," Lugo said.
Kansas City manufactured its lead in the sixth, when Josh Rojas stole home on the front end of a double steal and Salvador Perez followed with an RBI single.
Small Margins, Same Result
The larger pattern is what makes nights like this one wear on a clubhouse.
Nine of Kansas City's 11 games since the All-Star break have been decided by one run, including each of the last eight, and a 45-63 team that keeps playing coin-flip baseball is piling up hard lessons and not much else.
Lugo has been named a deadline trade piece all month and Monday's deadline is five days away.
He even hinted at a new wrinkle.
"I made a pretty significant adjustment to pitches that I've thrown more than others today. Worked out pretty good. Prefer to keep that information to myself, but I feel pretty confident about what we decided to do today," Lugo said.
What This Week Is Really About
Every start like that raises the return on a veteran arm, and Kansas City has several candidates to move beyond him, with Michael Wacha called the team's biggest trade chip earlier this month.
The standings say the front office should listen on all of them.
The team on the field keeps making that conversation complicated in the best way, playing tight, competitive baseball night after night.
That is the weird part of a July like this one, because the record says the climb is still long while the games keep suggesting the gap is smaller than it looks on paper.
Close losses do not move a team up the standings, but they do show a front office which pieces are worth building around and which veterans might bring back the most in a trade.
The series wraps Thursday with Randy Dobnak and his 1.42 ERA facing Minnesota's Joe Ryan, and it would fit this stretch perfectly if that one came down to the final inning too.
