KANSAS CITY -- Zebby Matthews¡¯ second start against the Royals this year didn¡¯t go nearly as well as his first, when the Twins¡¯ rookie right-hander got the win against Kansas City in his Major League debut on Aug. 13.

That was a different time and the Twins were in a distinctly different place from a health standpoint. Minnesota¡¯s depth-tested lineup had no answers for Royals All-Star left-hander Cole Ragans on Friday evening as the Twins suffered a 5-0 loss at Kauffman Stadium and fell to third place in the American League Central.

For Matthews -- ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Twins' No. 5 prospect -- the lack of run support was totally opposite from what he had experienced in that MLB debut when the Twins put up 13 runs. In the opener of a weekend series that has playoff seeding and possibly division title implications, Minnesota¡¯s offense gave its starter no margin for error.

The Royals took a 1-0 lead in the third when, with a runner at first, Tommy Pham slammed an RBI double into the left-field corner. In the fourth, the Twins had a runner at first when Austin Martin doubled to left, but the Royals executed a perfect 7-6-2 relay to easily throw out Kyle Farmer at the plate.

And so it went on a slip-and-slide night for the Twins.

¡°I think we made a good aggressive send on the ball in the corner,¡± Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. ¡°We¡¯re going to try to take an opportunity to push a run across and make something happen. I¡¯m good in that situation in being aggressive. If we score there, maybe it¡¯s a different game.¡±

Matthews hung tough until the fifth when the Royals, leading 2-0, put runners at second and third with two outs. Matthews had a 1-2 count on Hunter Renfroe, but Renfroe wound up delivering a two-run single to left on a slider.

¡°That slider was down and away, out of the zone,¡± Matthews said. ¡°I felt like I made a decent pitch there. [Renfroe] made a good adjustment, just to get the bat on the ball. That¡¯s baseball. Sometimes you make a quality pitch and they are able to do what they need to with it.¡±

Matthews -- who had lasted two innings after allowing nine runs in his last start against Toronto -- worked five innings and surrendered four runs on nine hits. Had Matthews been able to get Renfroe when he was one strike away, his line would have looked considerably different.

¡°Yeah, they scored a couple of runs at the end of his outing, so it¡¯s kind of punctuated on a note that Zebby doesn¡¯t like,¡± Baldelli said. ¡°But that¡¯s part of the game. If we were able to push two or three runs across, we¡¯re probably talking about Zebby¡¯s outing and saying he battled well. But we didn¡¯t score, so there ended up being a gap there.

¡°I thought Zebby threw the ball pretty decently today. There were a couple of pitches, a couple of at-bats where he didn¡¯t do what he wanted and they capitalized.¡±

Meanwhile, the Twins never capitalized against Ragans, who sailed through six scoreless innings before turning things over to the Kansas City bullpen.

¡°He¡¯s good,¡± Baldelli said of Ragans. ¡°We had a couple of opportunities and didn¡¯t score. You aren¡¯t normally going to tag this guy around the ballpark. That¡¯s just the case. We got something going early and he was able to pitch out of it.¡±

For Matthews, a lack of run support is never something that he dwells on.

¡°I know how hard [a hitter¡¯s] job is,¡± Matthews said. ¡°It¡¯s got to be the hardest job in all of sports. My job is to throw zeros. When I don¡¯t do that, it¡¯s more about, 'How can I be better, put up zeros and keep us in games?'¡±