Minneapolis ? Carl Pavano pitched eight strong innings, Delmon Young homered, and the Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-2, on Wednesday night.

Joe Mauer hit an RBI double and Jason Kubel had two hits to back Pavano (6-6), who lost three of his previous four starts. The right-hander limited Kansas City to two runs and six hits while striking out one. He retired his last nine batters and faced more than four Royals in an inning only twice.

Jon Rauch pitched a scoreless ninth, wrapping up the fourth victory in five games for the AL Central leaders. The crowd of 40,323 was Minnesota’s first of more than 40,000 at Target Field.

Pavano entered with the worst run support of Minnesota’s starters and had won only once since May 13. But he has pitched at least seven innings in four consecutive starts.

Pavano’s only real trouble came in the third. Kansas City took advantage of two walks and a pair of singles to take a 2-1 lead. From that point, however, the Royals got only one runner beyond first base against the 34-year-old Pavano.

Kansas City starter Kyle Davies (4-5) avoided giving up a big inning to the Twins, but Minnesota was able to steadily manufacture runs. The Twins scored single runs in the second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh off Davies.

In the fourth, Minnesota loaded the bases and Michael Cuddyer scored when rookie Danny Valencia grounded into a double play, giving the Twins a 3-2 lead.

Kubel doubled to start the seventh and gave Minnesota a 4-2 lead when Nick Punto beat out a potential inning-ending double play.

Davies, who let a leadoff walk turn into a run in the seventh, tied his season high with five bases on balls in 6 2/3 innings. Over his past three starts, Davies has given up 15 earned runs and 23 hits.