An injury before the game started and a pesky squirrel during the game were bad omens for the Kansas City Royals Monday.

Jeremy Guthrie gave up two-run homers to Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley and the Royals got just six hits in a 4-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians  when a trespassing squirrel provided some comedy by eluding members of the grounds crew for several innings.

Kipnis connected in the sixth inning off Guthrie (2-1), who failed to protect a 3-2 lead. Brantley’s two-run shot in the fourth made it 2-0.

But Kansas City’s problems began before the first pitch when first-base coach Rusty Kuntz broke his left arm when he was struck by a line drive hit by Salvador Perez.

“I thought somebody hit me with a baseball bat,” said Kuntz, who was standing behind a screen in shallow center field when he was hit.

“I look up and, ‘Oh my God, wait a minute.’ That thing hurt. I didn’t know what that was and all of a sudden I felt it.”

Kuntz, who will have surgery Wednesday, said the injury was a new one.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever broken a bone,” Kuntz said. “Riding bikes and falling off and jungle gyms and climbing bars and my whole life and now I’m hurt.”

Perez asked him if he was OK.

“I said, ‘Salvy, right now, no,'” Kuntz said. “All I want to do is throw up.”

Zach McAllister (3-0) gave up six hits and overcame three errors — one on his errant throw in the fifth, when the Royals scored three times. Marc Rzepczynski and Cody Allen pitched a hitless inning each, and Indians closer John Axford worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his seventh save.

Alex Gordon and Omar Infante each had two hits, but the Royals couldn’t get anything going on offense.