KANSAS CITY— Robinson Cano blasted two homers and the Mariners had five round-trippers total to support right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma in an 11-2 bashing of the Royals on Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium.

Cano homered in the first and hit a three-run homer in the third off Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie, who was lit up for nine hits and eight earned runs in 2 1/3 innings in his first start returning to the rotation. Cano now has 1,999 career hits.

The Royals’ magic number to clinch the American League Central remained at three. Kansas City’s lead over Toronto for home-field advantage throughout remained at 1 1/2 games.

Iwakuma went seven innings and gave up three hits and no runs. He walked one and struck out 10 and is now 7-2 with a 2.66 ERA over his last 10 starts.

“Eleven runs, that’s a lot,” Iwakuma said with a smile. “I’m very happy they supported me early and that helped me, just being able to pitch with a good groove and being able to get ahead, knowing they weren’t going to swing early. I took advantage of that.”

Guthrie’s outing was reminiscent of his start at Yankee Stadium on Memorial Day when he gave up 11 earned runs in one-plus innings. Alex Rios extended his hitting streak to 11 games for the Royals.

Royals manager Ned Yost would not comment on whether Guthrie makes his next start.

“I don’t make decisions on things like that right after games -- you know that,” Yost said. “We’ll sleep on it and evaluate it.”

But Yost did say that Danny Duffy wasn’t an option because he wants Duffy to get acclimated to the bullpen for the postseason.