KANSAS CITY— Slumping first baseman Eric Hosmer ripped an RBI double into the right-field corner with none out in the ninth, giving the Royals a 3-2 walk-off win over the Twins on Sunday afternoon.

It was the Royals’ second walk-off win of the four-game series after not having any in 2015. The teams split the four-game set and the Royals remained 4 1/2 games in the AL Central lead.

“It’s huge,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “It’s as big a game as you’re going to play in early July, because very seldom do you have the opportunity to make it a two-game swing. And with this win today, we go back to four and a half instead of two and a half, so it was a huge game. And we played it like that in our mind. This was a big game.”

Hosmer doubled in Lorenzo Cain, who led off the ninth with a walk. Cain also scored the game-winner in Friday’s walk-off win. Hosmer had not had an extra-base hit since he homered on June 19 and was hitting .200 since then.

“You look at it and we very easily could’ve won all four and in our minds we should’ve, but in the end we just split,” Twins second baseman Brian Dozier said. “I don’t know. It just seems like in the two wins they had everything that possibly could’ve went their way, went their way.”

Right-hander Ervin Santana made his Minnesota debut after serving an 80-game suspension for PED use. Facing his former team, Santana gave up just three hits in eight strong innings, striking out eight.

Left-hander Danny Duffy made his third start back from a stint on the disabled list for the Royals. He went 6 1/3 innings and gave up five hits and two runs.

“It felt good out there,” Duffy said. “It feels like I’m back.”

Alex Gordon homered for the Royals, his 10th this season.

Aaron Hicks homered for the Twins in the third inning, his second this season.