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Posted

Sometimes it is how you start, and there's no question that the Twins started out very well in Thursday night's game at Yankees Stadium. A nine-run first inning, led by a memorable inning for a Twins rookie, and back-to-back-to-back homers. Joe Ryan was fantastic and the Twins walked out with a nice, relaxing win against the Yankees. 

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz, USA Today

Box Score
SP: Joe Ryan: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 10 K (92 pitches, 69 strikes (75.0%)
Home Runs: Michael A. Taylor 2 (3), Edouard Julien (1), Carlos Correa (1) 
Top 3 WPA: Jose Miranda (0.124), Byron Buxton (0.076), Carlos Correa (0.068) 

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

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Pregame Notes 
There were a few interesting notes before the game even started. With Kyle Farmer being placed on the 10-day Injured List after undergoing surgery on Wednesday night, the Twins have added outfielder Kyle Garlick to the roster and moved Gilberto Celestino to the 60-Day Injured List. 

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Gleeman’s tweet got us all thinking. What could it mean? Why was Louie Varland scratched so late? Was there an injury?  

All indications are that Dan Hayes was correct. It sounds like Varland will start for the Twins one of the next couple of days with the rest of the starters getting an extra day of rest. 

Julien Leads Off and has Memorable First Inning 
In just his second big-league game, Rocco Baldelli placed Edouard Julien at the top of the Twins lineup. In his debut on Wednesday afternoon, he went 0-for-2, but he did coax a walk. 

In his first at-bat of the night, Julien drove a ball that one-hopped the right field wall at 104 mph. Played well by the outfielder, Julien was held to a single. 

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I’ll tell you more about what happened in between shortly, but the Quebec native, whose family was in Yankees Stadium for this game, came to the plate again in the first inning, this time against reliever Colten Brewer. In patented Julien style, he hit an opposite-field homer into the left field bleachers for his first career home run.

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That is just the fourth time since 1974 that a player has recorded his first hit and his first home run in the same inning (separate hits, of course). 

Huge, 9-Run First Inning 
It was a huge first inning for Edouard Julien, but it was a huge first inning for the whole Twins team. Julien got things going. Then he hustled to second on a Carlos Correa ground ball to the 5.5 hole. Anthony Volpe fielded it and threw to second, but after replay, Julien was safe at second. I included the article story photo that I did because you have to credit Rocco Baldelli for challenging the call in the first innings. You wonder, if they hadn’t challenged it or if Julien hadn’t been hustling, the rest of the inning and the game could have played out much differently than it ultimately did. 

Honestly, I’m just going to bullet point the inning for you. Scoring nine runs before your team even plays defense is always a good thing. 

Nine runs. Eight hits. And to follow that, Joe Ryan needed just eight pitches to get through the Yankees top three in the bottom of the inning. 

25-year-old Jhony Brito had made two MLB starts in his career before Thursday night. In his first two starts this season, he was 2-0 with a 0.90 ERA. Over 10 innings, he gave up just one run on five hits and three walks. My amateur scouting eye thinks that he has some really good stuff. His fastball sat between 96 and 98 mph, and he threw a few changeups that looked very good. Who knows where his career will go from here, but he certainly should get many more opportunities. 

Michael A. Taylor Power 
As you saw above, Taylor ended Brito’s night with a two-run homer in the first inning. 

After the Twins went scoreless in the second, Taylor followed a second Christian Vazquez double with his second home run of the night and third home run of the season. 

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Known for his defense, the 32-year-old is in his tenth big-league season. In his career, he has hit .241/.295/.381 (.676) with 115 doubles and 75 home runs (before this game). So no, he isn’t a great hitter, but when you couple in his Gold Glove-caliber defense with the occasional extra base hit, he does provide value to a team. In his career, he has a 19-homer season, a 14-homer season, and a 12-homer season.  

Joe Ryan Impresses
If you only looked at his face, the focus that Joe Ryan showed in his Thursday night outing was tremendous. Even as he was running out to the mound with a 10-run lead in the 7th inning, he looked as if he was pitching in a one-run game. 

Given the 9-0 lead before he took the mound, he responded with strikes and a very quick inning, exactly what the team needed. He was perfect through the Yankees lineup. Nine up. Nine down. In the fourth inning, he allowed a solo homer to Anthony Rizzo but shook that off to strike out Giancarlo Stanton to end that inning. He then struck out two more batters in a perfect fifth frame. 

He gave up a bloop single to Anthony Volpe with one out in the sixth inning, but he got Gleyber Torres to fly out and then struck out Aaron Judge for a second time. Judge was replaced by Aaron Hicks in the eighth inning which ended his streak of 45 consecutive games of reaching base. 

His night was complete after seven innings. Cole Sands made an appearance for the first time in well over a week. He had an 10-pitch eighth inning. With two outs in the ninth inning, Anthony Rizzo hit his second homer. 

Of his 92 pitches, Joe Ryan threw 58 four-seam fastballs, with a range of 90.3 to 95.8 mph and an average of 93.2 mph. He also threw 23 splitters and 11 sweepers. 

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Christian Vazquez deserves a lot of credit for Ryan's performance as well. Along with calling a great game, he went 3-for-4 with two doubles. He's hitting .379 on the young season. 

Postgame Notes
(coming soon) 

What’s Next? 
On Friday night in The Bronx, the Twins will send RHP Louie Varland  to the mound for his first start of 2023 to face 2022 All Star LHP Nestor Cortes (2-0, 2.61 ERA) in Game 2 of 4 in this series. Game time will again be 6:05 central time. 

Postgame Interviews

 

Bullpen Usage 

  SUN MON TUE WED THU TOT
Alcalá 45 0 0 15 0 60
Durán 0 0 24 15 0 39
Morán 0 35 0 0 0 35
Pagán 23 0 0 0 0 23
Sands 0 0 0 0 23 23
Jax 0 0 8 12 0 20
Thielbar 0 10 4 0 0 14
López 0 0 0 12 0 12

View full article

Posted

Nobody's talking about Rocco pulling starters in the 4th, 5th and 6th innings now as the quality of our staff is so much better. That makes the bullpen better. The end of the pen pitchers throw more in blowouts and best guys pitch in the close games. Keep it up Twins!

Posted

After this, it goes without saying that the Yankees will be after blood tomorrow. Tyler Mahle should start with a lot of high fastballs and low change-ups. Let them chase junk for an inning or two. 

Meanwhile, Joe Ryan glided through seven innings of superb pitching. Like Jose Berrios and Ervin Santana, Ryan has a pitching style that doesn't look like he's applying max effort, but the ball does what he wants. Mostly... ;-)

Posted

Finally forked out the $$$ and paid for MLBTV...so the first time I've seen Ryan pitch live this season.....has he changed his windup to start the season or was this a new thing tonight?  He didn't bring his hand over his head to start the windup but kept them in front of him.....

Whatever made him change....keep it up LOL

Posted
3 minutes ago, cheeseheadgophfan said:

Finally forked out the $$$ and paid for MLBTV...so the first time I've seen Ryan pitch live this season.....has he changed his windup to start the season or was this a new thing tonight?  He didn't bring his hand over his head to start the windup but kept them in front of him.....

Whatever made him change....keep it up LOL

If you have T mobile, you can get mlb tv for free. Unless it was just a short term offer

 

edit: looks like it was a limited time offer unfortunately ! I’ve had mine for free for two years now. Thank god because it was getting pricey 

Community Moderator
Posted
1 minute ago, Aggies7 said:

If you have T mobile, you can get mlb tv for free. Unless it was just a short term offer

It’s why I switched to T-Mobile. Great deal!

Posted
Just now, Squirrel said:

It’s why I switched to T-Mobile. Great deal!

I was a new user in 2022 after sprint merged. I actually paid for MLB tv last year and my buddy told me about the t mobile deal. Promptly canceled and signed up for the deal 

Community Moderator
Posted
2 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

I was a new user in 2022 after sprint merged. I actually paid for MLB tv last year and my buddy told me about the t mobile deal. Promptly canceled and signed up for the deal 

It’s one of the Tuesday deals and usually only good for a week right before the start of the season, so if you didn’t get it this year it won’t be available again until next year

Posted
6 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

If you have T mobile, you can get mlb tv for free. Unless it was just a short term offer

 

edit: looks like it was a limited time offer unfortunately ! I’ve had mine for free for two years now. Thank god because it was getting pricey 

I've got Verizon *^*&^*)@%!$!

Posted

WOW!  That’s our signature win for the month…  to stick it to those blessed Yankees in their own ballpark.  
 

“Next man up” will be Louie Varland.   He pitched well on 9/7/22 in his MLB debut at Yankee Stadium.  I’d be delighted with a repeat of 5.1 IP and 2 ER.  A rested bullpen and a renewed offense can take it from there!
 

 

 

Posted

1) Twins pitchers should take a lesson from Ryan. Just go after those Yankee hitters.

2) Also, I hope that Julien can stick. I love his approach. 

3) Honestly, if I had heard the score was 9-0 when I flipped on the TV or turned on the radio, I would have turned it back off thinking the worst had happened.

4) Let's win this series, OK?

 

Posted

It was mentioned in the game thread that the MLB game feed for a time described one of Taylor's homers as "homered softly to center."  Which of course is ridiculous, and must have been put up by a Yankees fan.  But the phrase rang a bell, and here's my rendition:

I heard he swung a good bat
I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him
To watch him play a while
And there he was this young man
A stranger to my eyes

[Chorus]
Gripping the bat with his fingers
Tapping the ground with his cleats
Homering softly to center
Homering softly... to center
Thrilling the whole crowd with his swing
Homering softly... center field.

Twins Daily Contributor
Posted
16 minutes ago, ashbury said:

It was mentioned in the game thread that the MLB game feed for a time described one of Taylor's homers as "homered softly to center."  Which of course is ridiculous, and must have been put up by a Yankees fan.  But the phrase rang a bell, and here's my rendition:

I heard he swung a good bat
I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him
To watch him play a while
And there he was this young man
A stranger to my eyes

[Chorus]
Gripping the bat with his fingers
Tapping the ground with his cleats
Homering softly to center
Homering softly... to center
Thrilling the whole crowd with his swing
Homering softly... center field.

You're gonna catch a lotta Flack over this one.

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