Matt Quatraro Praises Salvador Perez After Home Run King Ceremony

The Royals turned their first home game since he passed George Brett on the franchise home run list into a full celebration for Salvador Perez, and a crowd of 20,177 watched the night finish the right way, with an 8-2 win over Minnesota in the series opener.

The club painted a 318 emblem onto the field behind home plate and raised a flag with the same logo in right field, where it will stay for the rest of the season.

George Brett spoke during the pregame ceremony, Perez said he got chills watching the flag go up, and the Royals showed his milestone home runs between innings, going back to his first one in 2011.

Manager Matt Quatraro summed up the night well.

"He deserves that, right?" Quatraro said. "There was one milestone we were celebrating, but he deserves that as far as the whole body of work."

Perez, who now owns 319 career home runs, added a sacrifice fly in the first inning and a double in the eighth.

Bobby Witt Jr. was activated from the 10-day injured list Tuesday after missing two weeks with low back tightness, and the best player on this roster wasted no time, going 3 for 5 with two runs scored and two driven in.

His single started a two-run first inning that Perez and Michael Massey finished off, and his two-run double in the fifth stretched the lead to 4-1 before he came home on a fielder's choice from Jac Caglianone, who had two hits and a stolen base of his own.

Randy Dobnak gave the Royals five innings of one-run ball against the team he came up with, beating Minnesota for the second time in six days after throwing seven scoreless innings at Target Field last week.

For the season he is 2-0 with a 1.16 ERA across 31 innings, and four relievers covered the rest, allowing only a solo homer to Josh Bell in the eighth.

Starling Marte came off the bench for a two-run double in the bottom of the inning, and Kyle Isbel singled Marte home to make it 8-2.

Kansas City sits last in the American League Central at 47-67, 13 games out of first, and the front office spent deadline week selling, trading Kris Bubic to the Dodgers and Lane Thomas to the Braves.

A season like that can drift, which is why Tuesday felt bigger.

The win snapped a four-game skid after the team got swept in Colorado, it put Witt back in the middle of everything and reminded everyone what this franchise still has in Perez.

Perez is in his 20th year with the organization and has said again and again that he wants to finish his career as a Royal.

Nights like this one are what the rest of an out-of-the-race season is for, and there are two more right away, with the middle game of another series against the Twins coming Wednesday night and the finale Thursday before the Cubs arrive at Kauffman for the weekend.