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?'”