MINNEAPOLIS -- Joe Ryan’s problems against the Cleveland Guardians showed up again, and this time they landed another heavy blow to the Twins’ fading playoff hopes.
Cleveland didn’t repeat the six-homer barrage from Ryan’s last outing against them on July 2, but the Guardians still got to him early and often enough to force an abbreviated night. Ryan was lifted after four innings, charged with four runs and 84 pitches in a 9-2 Twins loss that left Minnesota in a deep hole.
Steven Kwan set the tone immediately, homering on Ryan’s second pitch of the game. Jo Adell followed with a solo shot to open the third, sending a ball off his bat at 116.8 mph, one of the hardest-hit home runs Ryan has allowed this season. Cleveland added two more runs in the fourth to make it 4-1 before Ryan’s night was over.
The swing-and-miss stuff never really arrived. Ryan finished with only five whiffs and one strikeout.
“I think 'battle' is probably the best way to put it,” Ryan said. “Just kind of long at-bats, throwing the ball for the most part in spots where we wanted to throw it.
They were just kind of beating me to it there. It's frustrating when it's a day like that, and yeah, they've had a pretty good approach all year, I'd say."
The Twins did get a little life from Trevor Larnach, who crushed his 13th home run of the year on Tanner Bibee’s first pitch in the seventh inning. But by then, Bibee had already controlled the game, holding Minnesota to two hits and one run over six innings. Kody Clemens delivered the Twins’ other offense with an RBI double in the third.
Minnesota dropped to 70-79, nine games under .500, and the math is getting uglier by the day. The club is still technically alive, but a 7-13 stretch over its last 20 games has pushed it into a place that is tough to escape with only 13 games left.
“We’ve put ourselves multiple times in a chance to win a series, and we have not been able to complete it for one reason or another," said Twins manager Derek Shelton. "That’s definitely frustrating.”
“It doesn't feel like we're far, but we're far enough that we're not in the conversation,” said Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers. “It's easy to sit here and look at the stretch we went through, understanding going into that stretch how important those two and a half weeks were, and then to come out and win, what, four games? That's not the job we had to do, and here we are.”
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For Minnesota, the bigger takeaway was how the game kept opening new lanes for a club that has been looking for different ways to win. Rodriguez finished with a hit, a run, an RBI, a home run and an assist, while the bullpen did enough to protect the lead the offense had built. The debut was memorable on its own, but it also hinted at how quickly a new face can alter the look of a lineup when the Twins need one more spark. [Read more 🡒]