KANSAS CITY, MO. – This weekend was supposed to be a welcome respite from the pressures of a pennant race for the Twins. But the Royals — and especially Bobby Witt Jr. — have turned up the heat instead.

Bailey Ober surrendered six runs and 11 hits, both of them career highs, over four innings, the Royals added four more runs off relievers to thwart the Twins’ attempt at a rally, and Minnesota lost its fourth consecutive game, 10-7 at Kauffman Stadium.

The Guardians lost for a second consecutive night in Chicago, freezing the gap between first-place Minnesota and second-place Cleveland at 1½ games. But the Twins hardly looked like a playoff contender against a team that opened this series 25 games behind them.

Witt continued his abuse of Twins pitching, following Friday night’s four-hit performance, which included a walk-off grand slam against Jhoan Duran, with four more hits Saturday, including a first-inning solo home run that set the tone for another Kansas City romp. Witt, who also singled twice and tripled in a run, has driven in nine runs in the first two games of the series.

His double-play partner, second baseman Michael Massey, also homered off Ober, part of back-to-back four-hit innings by Kansas City that staked them to a 6-0 lead and denied Ober his first win in seven career starts against the Royals.

It wasn’t just an Ober problem, however. The Twins used three other pitchers, and each of them allowed at least one run as the Royals piled up a season-high 18 hits.

In other words, a weekend that was supposed to be so cushy — the Twins had won nine of the first 10 meetings between the teams, after all — that Minnesota reduced its bullpen to seven members before it started has turned out to be as taxing as playing the Yankees. It’s a good bet that the Twins will be back to their normal 13-man pitching staff when they face St. Louis on Tuesday.

In the meantime, they will wonder how they could lose to a last-place team on a night when the longest-serving Twins enjoyed throwback-type performances. Byron Buxton doubled three times and was hit by a pitch, the first time all season he’s reached base four times. Including his pinch hit on Friday, he’s still batting 1.000 since the birth of his third son Baire last Monday.

Max Kepler doubled, walked and hit his 15th home run of the season, a leadoff blast to straightaway center in the sixth inning that helped briefly pulled the Twins within one run, 6-5. Kepler, continuing his turnaround after a terrible first half, is now batting .322 and slugging .576 since the season resumed two weeks ago.

But the Twins killed some rallies with bad luck or poor decisions, too. They had the bases loaded in the sixth inning with one out, but Carlos Correa hit a hard grounder toward second base that Massey smothered and turned into a double play, the MLB-leading 20th Correa has hit this season.

And in the eighth inning, after scoring twice to close the gap to three runs, Correa singled to left field. Willi Castro, who had also singled, decided to try to take third, but he was easy prey for left fielder MJ Melendez, who snuffed the rally by easily throwing Castro out.

The victory made a winner, for the first time in more than a month, of veteran righthander Jordan Lyles, who entered the game with a 1-12 record on the season, and 0-2 in five career starts against the Twins.