MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Alex Gordon, Salvador Perez and Josh Willingham homered, and the Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins 12-6 on Sunday for their 20th win in their last 25 games.
Kansas City sent 11 batters to the plate and scored seven times in the second, keyed by two-run singles for Alcides Escobar and Nori Aoki. The Royals also increased their AL Central lead to 1 1/2 games over Detroit, which lost 8-1 to Seattle.
This is the latest the Royals have been in first place since 2003.
Kansas City's Jeremy Guthrie (9-10) returned to the mound after a 54-minute rain delay in the fourth and lasted seven innings, yielding home runs to Joe Mauer and Kennys Vargas.
Oswaldo Arcia also went deep for Minnesota, hitting a two-run drive off Jason Frasor in the eighth for his 11th homer.
Escobar opened the scoring in the second with a bases-loaded single off Tommy Milone (6-4). After Jarrod Dyson walked to load the bases again, Aoki dropped a single into left-center to give the Royals a 4-0 lead.
As the rain came down, two more scored when second baseman Brian Dozier couldn't field Omar Infante's grounder. Billy Butler, who led off the inning with a single and had three hits, capped the big second by singling home Infante.
In his second start with Minnesota since coming over in a trade from Oakland, Milone allowed seven runs in a career-low 1 1-3 innings.
The first pitch was delayed 34 minutes in anticipation of a rain shower that never happened. The rain did arrive as the second inning started and got worse until umpires called the players off the field with one out in the bottom of the fourth.
After managing just one run in Saturday night's 4-1 loss, the Royals scored 10 or more for just the third time since June 17.
UP NEXT
ROYALS: Coming off his sixth career shutout vs. Oakland, Jason Vargas (9-5) starts the finale of the four-game series on Monday. Vargas has a 0.86 ERA in three starts against Minnesota this year and hasn't allowed a run in the last two.
TWINS: Trevor May (0-1) will try and bounce back after walking seven batters over two innings during his first major league start on Aug. 9. "He's been like a raging bull out there," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "We gotta calm him down right now."
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