Soler, Benintendi hit homers for Minor as Royals snap skid

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Jorge Soler and Andrew Benintendi homered to help back Mike Minor, and the Kansas City Royals snapped a five-game losing streak by beating the Oakland Athletics 6-1 on Thursday night.

The Royals finally got to Frankie Montas (6-6), who was crisp into the seventh with eight strikeouts and no walks. He was tagged for three runs — two earned — on five hits over 6 1/3 innings.

Minor (5-3) struck out eight and walked one while allowing three hits and one earned run over seven strong innings.

His offense came through late.

Hunter Dozier hit a tying double in the seventh then Kelvin Gutiérrez followed with a go-ahead, two-run single.

Soler connected for a two-run homer in the eighth and Benintendi added a solo shot that inning as key contributors to an important Royals win after they were outscored 22-5 in a three-game road sweep by the Angels.

Jed Lowrie homered leading off the fourth, but that was it for Oakland, which has struggled recently clearing the fences at home with regular windy conditions,

“Matt Olson hit a ball 109 mph yesterday at 31 degrees, which is a homer anywhere, anytime, and it barely made it to the warning track,” manager Bob Melvin said before the game. “That can be frustrating at times for these guys."

The A's dropped to 9-2 against the AL Central this season.

Montas had been 2-0 with a 1.62 ERA over his first three career outings against the Royals.

TOUGH OPPONENT

The Royals are just 5-10 with four series defeats to the A's since the club's last winning set — taking two of three versus Oakland from Aug. 14-16, 2017. But since a 19-4 loss on Aug. 26, 2019, the last six meetings had been decided by two or fewer runs and four straight one-run games before Thursday's result.

The...

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