BOSTON (AP) – Jorge Soler didn’t have to wait for the question about the Green Monster to be finished before breaking into a wide smile.

Soler hit a pair of long two-run homers over the Monster, Jakob Junis pitched six effective innings and the Kansas City Royals snapped their seven-game losing streak by beating the Boston Red Sox 6-2 on Tuesday night.

“When (I) get to a park like this, it feels little bit more comfortable obviously because the park is smaller,” he said through a translator after breaking into his smile. “You can mis-hit balls and they end up leaving the yard.”

Soler was standing at his locker after the game with an ice pack on his left shoulder, but it certainly didn’t affect his power on the two shots that totaled nearly an estimated 800 feet.

“He hits ’em a long way,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost said.

Ryan O’Hearn also homered for Kansas City, which had lost eight in a row to the Red Sox – its longest slump ever against Boston.

Christian Vazquez had two hits with an RBI double for Boston, which halted its eight-game skid a night earlier.

The Red Sox also were held without a home run, ending a club-record stretch of at least one homer in 18 straight games in Fenway Park.

Junis (7-10) escaped a couple of early jams and gave up one run on seven hits, striking out four with one walk. He went at least six innings for the 12th time in his last 15 starts.

“You definitely want to be the one to put a stop to it,” Junis said of the team’s skid. “You want to be the guy that goes out and throws a strong game.”

Andrew Cashner (10-7) gave up six runs on seven hits – three of them homers – over 5 1/3 innings, dropping his record to 1-4 since being traded from Baltimore to the Red Sox.

“I thought I had good stuff,” he said. “Made three mistakes, they hit three home runs. Kind of the way it goes, but they’re a team that we’ve got to beat. I’ve got to be better.”

A night after the Red Sox got a solid start from Rick Porcello to snap their longest losing stretch since dropping eight straight in 2015, Cashner was chased with Boston trailing 6-1 in the sixth.

Soler’s first homer, his 30th of the season, left Fenway completely, making it 2-1 in the fourth.

Two innings later, he hit a drive that caromed off a billboard in left center to make it 6-1 after Hunter Dozier’s RBI single. Soler is seven homers from tying the club record for a season, set by Mike Moustakas in 2017.

O’Hearn’s drive went into the seats in deep right, next to the Royals bullpen.

The Red Sox stranded seven runners over the first four innings.

“I think we swung at a lot of pitches that were out of the zone or pitches at the end of the zone that we can’t do damage with it,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said.

Kansas City center fielder Bubba Starling struck out swinging in all four at-bats but made a nice catch to save at least one run.

CASHING OUT

Cashner has given up at least six runs in three of his five starts after he was acquired from the Orioles in mid-July. He’s allowed seven homers in 28 innings and has a 7.53 ERA with the Red Sox.

During the eight-game skid, Boston’s starters had a 10.95 ERA.

RUNS SAVER

Starling made a leaping catch on Vazquez’s fly ball at the wall to end the third inning and likely saved two runs.

Boston had already taken a 1-0 lead on Andrew Benintendi’s RBI single and had runners on first and third when Starling drifted back to the wall before jumping to make the grab.

HOW ABOUT THAT

Red Sox 2B Michael Chavis made a nice over-the -shoulder catch in shallow center off Dozier before tumbling to the ground.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Red Sox: Cora said knuckleballer Steven Wright is traveling to Florida to see Dr. James Andrews on Wednesday to get a second opinion on his pitching elbow. … Cora also said that RHP Heath Hembree received a platelet-rich plasma injection near his right elbow. SS Xander Bogaerts got the day off.

UP NEXT

Royals: RHP Glenn Sparkman (3-7, 5.58 ERA) is scheduled to pitch the series finale Wednesday. He’s 0-4 with a 10.16 ERA in seven road starts this season.

Red Sox: LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (13-5, 4.19) is slated to go for Boston. The Red Sox are 17-3 in his last 20 starts.

BOSTON (AP) – Rick Porcello pitched six innings of one-run ball, Sam Travis hit a two-run homer and the Boston Red Sox halted their eight-game losing streak with a 7-5 victory over the struggling Kansas City Royals on Monday night.

Rafael Devers added a solo shot for the Red Sox. Travis’ gave Boston a homer in a club-record 18 straight games in Fenway Park. The old mark was set in 1969.

Bubba Starling, Meibrys Viloria and Cheslor Cuthbert each went deep for Kansas City, with Viloria’s his first homer in the majors and Starling’s a three-run shot.

It was the seventh straight loss for the Royals, who had a 10-game skid in the season’s first two weeks.

Porcello (10-8), who smashed a pair of TV monitors in the Fenway dugout in frustration in his last start, gave up four hits, walked two and struck out five.

The only thing he broke this time was the defending World Series champions’ losing streak. They hadn’t won since beating the rival Yankees at home on July 27 and entered the day 6 1/2 games out of the AL’s second wild-card spot.

The longest skid for a defending champ is 11 games, done by both the 1998 then-Florida Marlins (twice) and the 1986 Royals.

Boston’s starters had a 10.95 ERA over the eight-game skid.

Brandon Workman got the final three outs for his sixth save.

Making his fourth start since being acquired from the Chicago Cubs in July, Mike Montgomery (1-5) gave up four runs – two earned – over five innings and fell to 0-3 since joining the Royals.

In their first time through the order against Montgomery, the Red Sox struck out five times. Boston jumped ahead with three runs the second time.

Mookie Betts opened the third inning with a walk and Devers singled. Shortstop Nick Lopez booted Xander Bogaerts’ grounder, with Betts scoring from third.

After Andrew Benintendi bounced into a double play, Travis hit his shot into the Green Monster seats. Devers hit his over the Monster in the fifth.

Benintendi’s two-run double highlighted a three-run seventh that made it 7-2.

QUICK WORK

Viloria’s homer went over the Monster and the ball bounced onto the field, where it rolled it down the line and was picked up by a ball girl, who gave it to a child in the first row.

Some in the Royals dugout yelled and finally got her attention before throwing her a ball. She quickly went over and swapped it.

CRUNCHING NUMBERS

Boston manager Alex Cora knows his team’s in a big hole.

“We’ve got to win series. That’s the bottom line,” he said before the game. “If you win every series from now on, you put yourself in a good spot. If we do something great as far as math and percentages and all that, I do believe that we do need a streak of putting good pitching together. We can’t talk about it, ‘We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.’ Right now, we’re not fine.”

TRAINER’S ROOM

Royals: INF Adalberto Mondesi (left shoulder) is with the team doing his rehab work, but manager Ned Yost said it’s likely a while before he returns to the lineup.

Red Sox: DH J.D. Martinez was scratched from the lineup due to back tightness. . Cora and a trainer came out to check on Betts when he was on first in the seventh. He stayed in but limped around the bases on Benintendi’s double and was removed with a left shin contusion.

UP NEXT

Royals: RHP Jakob Junis (6-10, 5.03 ERA) is slated to start on Tuesday. He’s pitched at least six innings in 11 of his last 14 starts.

Red Sox: RHP Andrew Cashner (10-6, 4.51) is set to start for Boston and is looking to set a career high in wins.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Devin Smeltzer’s meditation routine kept him calm on the way to his first major league win.

Smeltzer pitched two-hit ball into the seventh inning, and the Minnesota Twins completed a three-game sweep by blanking the Kansas City Royals 3-0 on Sunday.

Jason Castro homered and Eddie Rosario drove in two runs for the Twins, who maintained their three-game lead over Cleveland in the AL Central. Luis Arraez had two hits and scored twice.

Making his third career start in the middle of a pennant race, Smeltzer looked calm as he efficiently worked his way through the Royals’ lineup.

“I was really just impressed with how he carried himself, and that hasn’t changed at all,” said Castro, who was behind the plate for Minnesota. “Every time he’s come up, he seems very confident, not shook by being at this level in big spots.”

That’s a good sign for the Twins, who are dealing with some injuries with their pitching staff. Michael Pineda is out with a right triceps strain, and newly acquired reliever Sam Dyson was added to the injured list Sunday morning with right biceps tendinitis.

That cleared the path for Smeltzer’s promotion, giving originally scheduled starter Jake Odorizzi an extra day off.

“I don’t foresee many scenarios where he doesn’t fit in,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I see him certainly playing a big role going forward one way or the other.”

Baldelli stopped short of saying how exactly Smeltzer would be used. Smeltzer wasn’t complaining, though.

“I believe that I’m a starter and can get the job done and I believe I can do it (in) the pen as well,” Smeltzer said. “I spoke on it the last time I was up here, whatever they call on me, if it’s playing right field, I’m going to do my best to help the team win.”

Smeltzer, who likes to meditate on the field before games, struck out four and walked one on 90 pitches. He started the seventh but was replaced by Tyler Duffey after issuing a leadoff walk to Alex Gordon. Duffey struck out Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler, and Castro cut down Gordon attempting to steal second.

Rosario tacked on an RBI single in the eighth to give the Twins some cushion.

Sergio Romo pitched a scoreless eighth for Minnesota, and Taylor Rogers finished the two-hitter for his 17th save in 23 chances.

KELLER’S EFFORT

Brad Keller (7-11) blanked Minnesota’s high-powered offense — which scored 22 runs in the previous two games — through five innings, looking every bit as tough as Smeltzer.

“I was just hoping we could find a way to score some runs for him, because he has been pitching so well,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “But, their lefty over there (Smeltzer) did a great job keeping the ball down, moving the ball in, moving the ball out.”

Keller ran into trouble after Arraez led off the sixth with a single. Arraez advanced on a wild pitch, went to third on Nelson Cruz’s groundout and came home on Rosario’s sacrifice fly.

Castro connected against Keller with two out in the seventh. It was his 11th of the season and No. 217 for Minnesota, tops in the majors.

MERRIFIELD’S STREAK

Kansas City’s Whit Merrifield went 0 for 4 to snap his streak of 135 straight games without back-to-back hitless games. He also went 0 for 4 on Saturday.

“I didn’t know people kept streaks like that,” he said. “Looking back on it now it sort of reflects the good stretch of consistency that I’ve had, which is what I strive for. It makes me feel good about what I’ve done.”

TRAINERS ROOM

Twins: The newly acquired Dyson joined a long list of players on Minnesota’s injured list. Having barely arrived in Minnesota in a trade with San Francisco last week, the Twins hope Dyson’s time away is a matter of days, not weeks. Baseball operations president Derek Falvey said he was surprised. “He didn’t have any open injuries, and from our medical review and otherwise we felt good about where he was,” Falvey said.

UP NEXT

Royals: Mike Montgomery (0-2) takes the mound for Monday night’s series opener at Boston. Montgomery is coming off a loss against Toronto on Tuesday, when he allowed four runs and seven hits in 4 1/3 innings.

Twins: After his unexpected day off, Odorizzi (12-5) starts his first home game against a National League team when Atlanta visits for a three-game set. Odorizzi is 0-1 with a 6.00 ERA in two career games against the Braves, who visit Minneapolis for the first time since 2016.