Twins 5, Angels 0: It's So Not Joever

[Hans Birkeland]

As terrible, no good, and very bad as this season has started, the Twins have shown life lately and perhaps those who called for Rocco Baldelli's job can touch some grass. Joe Ryan was incredible and the offense did just enough against a decent pitcher who threw well, Jose Soriano, to complete the sweep of the struggling Angels.

Image courtesy of © Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

Box Score:
Starting Pitcher: Joe Ryan: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 11 K (98 Pitches, 67 Strikes, 68.3%)
Home Runs: None
Top 3 WPA: Ryan (.391), Carlos Correa (.141), Ty France (.051)
Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

In each of the last two years, series sweeps at the hands of the Atlanta Braves have served as demarcation lines of the Twins' season. In 2023, a brutal sweep dropped the Twins to a 40-42 record on June 28th. They would go 47-33 the rest of the way, en route to breaking their playoff curse.

In 2024, a sweep in late August etched in stone the fact that the Twins were in big trouble. That series at Target Field dropped the team to 72-61, and they would go 10-19 the rest of the way against a fairly easy portion of their schedule.

Well, the Twins are 5-1 since yet another Braves sweep. Granted, the White Sox and Angels are dysfunctional at best (historically bad at worst), but wins are wins. Moreover, the Twins have shown the ability to produce a winning formula—some sort of identity. They've been scoring early and the foundation of a good hitting core has started to emerge with Trevor Larnach, Byron Buxton, Luke Keaschall, Ryan Jeffers and even Carlos Correa rounding into form. Brooks Lee looks more playable at the plate, and Royce Lewis has been the MVP of the first week off the injured list in his career; he's coming back soon. Matt Wallner could follow soon after.

The pitching that was supposed to be the strength of the team has started to perform like it, and Griffin Jax no longer looks like a complete head case.

But again, these are the White Sox and Angels.

Sunday, Joe Ryan looked to redeem himself after being rattled into giving up three home runs against the Braves last Sunday. His breaking stuff looked as good as I've seen it, as he induced three pop-ups in a quick first inning.

He then struck out the side in the second, two in well-placed fastballs up in the zone. His third inning may have been even better, recording all three outs on fastballs the Angels hitters simply couldn't pick up.

Opposing Ryan was Jose Soriano, a sinker/slider pitcher who has had a couple of really nice outings thus far. He also boasts the highest ground ball rate among starters in baseball. Leaning more on his curveball in the first, Soriano walked Edouard Julien (including some impressive takes) before Correa ripped a double to left. Larnach then struck out before Ty France looped a fly ball the other way that the typically transcendent Mike Trout threw to third base on, allowing Julien, who didn't even get a good break on the play, to score from third.

Correa delivered his second hit, a two-out single in the third. Larnach followed with a single to right that drew a throw from Trout to third base, allowing the Twins to put two runners in scoring position, but France tapped out to the pitcher to end the threat.

Ryan ran into a little trouble in the fourth, allowing a booming 107 MPH double to the hot-hitting Zach Neto with one out. After inducing a fly out to Taylor Ward, Logan O'Hoppe worked an impressive at-bat and appeared to be close to squaring up Ryan's fastball on a series of foul balls. He didn't offer at the eighth pitch, a fastball that hit the bottom of the zone, but the pitch was called a ball. Rather than allowing the tough luck to affect him, Ryan struck out Travis D'Arnaud looking to end the frame.

Meanwhile, Soriano was in a groove, as well. He was spotting his sinker extremely well and getting ahead of nearly every hitter. The Twins were also featuring one of their lightest-hitting lineups of the year, the day before they travel to Cleveland to face the Guardians in a pivotal (for April) four-game set. Mickey Gasper was DH'ing and DeShawn Keirsey Jr. was inserted to give Byron Buxton the day off. It sure would have been nice if Emmanuel Rodriguez was healthy and lighting it up at Triple-A.

Through no fault of Soriano, the Twins added insurance in the sixth. Correa bounced a hard grounder past Kyren Paris for an error to start the frame. Larnach then squibbed a ball under Luis Rengifo's glove for another error (I sure want to like Rengifo as a player, but his glove is just terrible). France then got one of the first mistakes of Soriano's outing (an elevated breaking ball) and laced it into the left-field corner for a double to score Correa.

That spelled the end of the day for Soriano. Gasper was lifted in favor of Jonah Bride to face lefty Brock Burke, and popped out weakly for the first out, which evoked memories of yesterday's bases loaded, no out situation that yielded nothing off Angels reliever Ryan Johnson. However, Jeffers then pounced on a Burke breaking ball and roped it into the corner to score both runners.

The scoring would end there. The Angels tried to answer right back- Ward hit a laser to center field off a Ryan fastball, but Harrison Bader make a sprawling catch with his back to the infield to record the first out.

A pop-out and a d'Arnaud double followed. Rengifo then hit a chopper off Ryan's glove that Julien couldn't flip to first in time on, putting runners on the corners for J.D Davis. But Ryan struck out Davis (for the third time) on an elevated fastball for his 11th strikeout, putting the finishing touches on one of his best outings in recent memory.

Larnach added an RBI single to the opposite field in the seventh for the game's fifth run. Justin Topa pitched two scoreless innings to finish off the win.

Trends:

	Healthy	Hurt
Performing
Contributing
Low Impact/Slumping
IL/Minors
C	Ryan Jeffers ?	Christian Vazquez
1B	Ty France ?
2B	Mickey Gasper	Brooks Lee ?	Edouard Julien
3B	Royce Lewis	Jose Miranda	Jonah Bride
SS	Carlos Correa ?
LF	Trevor Larnach
CF	Byron Buxton	Harrison Bader	DaShawn Keirsey Jr. ?
RF	Matt Wallner
UTIL	Willi Castro	Luke Keaschall
SP1	Pablo Lopez	Bailey Ober ?	Joe Ryan ?
SP2	Chris Paddack ?	Simeon Woods Richardson
CR	Jhoan Duran ?	Griffin Jax ?
SR	Brock Stewart	Louis Varland ?	Cole Sands ?
MR	Danny Coloumbe	Justin Topa	Michael Tonkin
LR	Randy Dobnak	Jorge Alcala ?	Kody Funderburk

 

What’s Next: Bailey Ober (2-1, 5.04 ERA) goes against Gavin Williams (2-1, 4.15 ERA) as the Twins return to the Major League portion of their schedule against the devil-magic-wielding Cleveland Guardians. Williams has been mercurial in his brief career, missing time with injury and mixing dominance with mediocrity. He struck out eight Yankees in 6 1/3 innings his last time out to record a win, however. Ober has been rounding into form, but did allow a lot of hard contact to the White Sox his last time out.

Postgame Interviews:

Bullpen Usage Chart:

	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Topa	6	0	15	0	27	48
Alcalá	0	41	0	0	0	41
Varland	0	0	20	19	0	39
Jax	14	0	0	19	0	33
Sands	17	0	13	0	0	30
Stewart	20	0	0	6	0	26
Coulombe	13	0	12	0	0	25
Durán	0	0	0	7	0	7

 

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[jorgenswest]

24 minutes ago, Hans Birkeland said:

Bailey Ober (2-1, 5.04 ERA) goes against Gavin Williams (2-1, 4.15 ERA) as the Twins return to the Major League portion of their schedule against the devil-magic-wielding Cleveland Guardians.

Don’t the Angels have a .500 record when not playing the Twins? It was a nice sweep of a major league team that was 12-12 when they came to town.

[Blyleven2011]

I tuned in late to see the seventh inning stretch  , so I looked at the boss score and Ryan went seven and twins were up 4-0 , yippee skippee  ...

Nice to see Ryan go 7 with 11 strikeouts , and topa contributed with 2 innings of no hit ball ...

Good pitching shuts out angels , nice ...

Correa was 3 for 3 but then structvout  , nice to see some contributions from Correa  , we won without buxton  ...

Nice homestand against mediocre teams , 5-1 homestand  ...

Hopefully  this will help motivate the team into winning , next test is Cleveland and Boston on the road and Baltimore and San Francisco at home , of the above mentioned , Baltimore is the only team below 500 and that could change by the time we play them ...

Nice sweep , let play strong baseball tomorrow and the next day and the next , just pound your opponent into oblivion  ...

Go Twins  , on paper your suppose to win the division  ...

The season starts in Cleveland  ...

[Linus]

Kind of an old school game with the starters pitching deeper into the game.  Really is an easy game to manage when your starter gives you 7 quality innings. 

[LastOnePicked]

"perhaps those who called for Rocco Baldelli's job can touch some grass"

Oof. Steady on there, champ. They just went 5-1 against the lowly White Sox and Angels at home. Let's revisit this after they play some better teams and maybe, maybe play .500 baseball for a few weeks.

[Parfigliano]

Nice week for TC against a bad team and a mediocre team.  Next week they play two teams that aren't bad or mediocre.  Lets see where their record stands next Sunday.

[BH67]

This may not be a mirage. But the streakiness is vexing.

[dxpavelka]

47 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

"perhaps those who called for Rocco Baldelli's job can touch some grass"

Oof. Steady on there, champ. They just went 5-1 against the lowly White Sox and Angels at home. Let's revisit this after they play some better teams and maybe, maybe play .500 baseball for a few weeks.

They almost had to do that against the White Sox & Angels.  They were the teams on the schedule, thus rendering doing so against any other team(s) highly unlikely.

[D.C Twins]

As the resident poster giving the most crap to Correa..... let me just also say that if he and Buck ever get back to consistent ALL-Star level play at the same time.... this team could compete.

I don't know if the is the beginning of a Correa breakout but I sure hope so.

Is it possible that he is just a terrible hitter in cold weather?  

 

 

[Mrs. Baseball]

Excellent pitching, some clutch swings and a highlight reel catch.. Solid win and sweep. Yes it's the Angels but a sweep beats the alternative. Perhaps it's been noted but Correa's rocket in the 6th was changed from an error to a hit so 3-4. His lumber is starting to heat up.

Go Twins! Turn the page on the gut punches.

[Althebum82]

It sure would have been nice if Emmanuel Rodriguez was healthy and lighting it up at Triple-A.

So, an argument could be made that while it is disappointing to have Keirsey unable to hit his weight, he is doing what is asked of him defensively and as a pinch runner.  Rodriguez would not be a good candidate for Keirsey's role.  He needs to keep developing to play a much more vital role for this team when it is ready for him to show his potential.

McCusker IS healthy and lighting it up at Triple-A.  However, he has yet to get the attention of the right people to even place him on the 40 man roster........

 

[Vanimal46]

4 hours ago, Hans Birkeland said:

As terrible, no good, and very bad as this season has started, the Twins have shown life lately and perhaps those who called for Rocco Baldelli's job can touch some grass.

Enjoy the victory lap, I guess? We don’t play the White Sox again until August, and the Angels in September. So the Twins have to beat real teams in the meantime. 

[GNess]

Not sure if it will be soon enough for the Twins to make a run at the division, but when Lewis, Keaschall and Wallner all return coupled with Correa, Buxton and Larnach hitting some the Twins lineup will be fairly formidable.

[LastOnePicked]

2 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

They almost had to do that against the White Sox & Angels.  They were the teams on the schedule, thus rendering doing so against any other team(s) highly unlikely.

Yup, we agree. Those were the teams on the schedule at that time. Glad we got that squared away. Let's see how they do against the next few foes.

Regardless, I'm still calling for Baldelli's job. Let the galled jade wince ... my grass remains untouched.

[JD-TWINS]

Correa seems to have turned a corner

Larnach seems to have turned a corner.

Jeffers seems to be more consistent.

Lewis - Wallner - Castro will be back over 2-3 weeks……… they displace Kiersey - Gasper - ??

Lee is pushing to stay with the club with his recent 5 game hitting streak. Bride has no options but is 4-9 as a Twin……he needs to get a bit of consideration. He hit .272 with 11HR in the Show last year…….consideration! Castro should get “plenty of time to heal”.

At some point (maybe not til beginning of ‘26?) either Lewis or Keaschall have to play 1B regularly. If Bryce Harper can move to 1B to stay healthy & get more AB’s for his Club, one of those two (Lewis) can move to 1B as well!!

Lee - CC - Keaschall - Lewis is a formidable infield offensively………..Jeffers - Larnach - Buxton - Wallner fill out the position spots.

Bader - Castro - Vazquez - France - Julien

[JD-TWINS]

Joe Ryan Experience! ………nice.

Topa did a great job - really looked to be in control in and out with his pitch mix!

7 relievers got a day off……. 5 guys fresh headed to Cleveland on Monday. 2 v. Guardians this week would be nice but 3 would be huge!

[S Bart]

Fingers crossed...the pitching (especially the starters) has been decent this month. They have the 10th best ERA, and the 9th highest strike out total in MLB. They also have Matthews waiting in the wings with a 1.93 ERA in AAA. 

[knothole61]

4 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

Yup, we agree. Those were the teams on the schedule at that time. Glad we got that squared away. Let's see how they do against the next few foes.

Regardless, I'm still calling for Baldelli's job. Let the galled jade wince ... my grass remains untouched.

Hamlet...wow!

[knothole61]

Nice sweep. I refuse, however, to hope for too much on this upcoming road trip. I've set 3-4 as the expected outcome against Cleveland and Boston...anything under that is a bad road trip and anything over that is good. Baby steps are fine right now because, well, it's still April!

And, Go Wolves (couldn't help it)!

[KirbyDome89]

9 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

Don’t the Angels have a .500 record when not playing the Twins? It was a nice sweep of a major league team that was 12-12 when they came to town.

They've won 3 games in their last 4 series and scored 0 or 1 run in nearly half of those games. 

[UK Twin]

Good to see the Twins completely dominate a team over a 3 game series. Ryan was outstanding and showed why he was such a big miss down the stretch last season. 

Anyway, huge road trip coming up. I would be happy with a 4-3 record over the next 7 games in Cleveland and Boston. Hugely important that we only used one arm out of the pen yesterday (again, due to Ryan's superb outing). 

[Doctor Wu]

Man, watching that video clip of Ryan's sweeper: what a wonderfully nasty pitch! Great outing Joe!

[madtowntwin]

The lineup minus Buxton on a rest day appeared far from formidable yet Correa had his best day at the plate of the season. Agreed - Add Wallner, Castro, Lewis, and Keaschall to the mix....Larnach seem to be figuring it out - And if Jeffers could do the same...Joe's fastball was as strong as it's been since midseason last year and his sweeper was dancing. Topa threw 2 innings and looked like the pitcher we've been seeking since he was acquired. It's not even May yet....Win Twins!!

[bean5302]

Really great start by Joe Ryan! Those are the kinds of starts which give credibility to the overzealous "dark-horse Cy Young" folks. Though I don't believe Ryan will have a lot of those, the Twins need a couple guys to step up and deliver outstanding performances now.

It's great seeing a 3 hit performance, and even an extra base for Correa, and a couple more hits for Larnach. With Buxton on a tear lately, Correa's bat coming around is still critical for the team this year.

The Twins managing to win some games with small ball, and without accidentally kicking balls around the field is nice.

[Linus]

As Bean mentions the Twins have played much cleaner baseball in the field and running the bases.   Baders catch was exciting but he also does some little things well like getting to potential doubles quickly and cutting them off thereby holding the batter to a single. 

[Dawgzilla]

That IS pitching.  That was fun to watch (Ryan)!  I was a pitcher and was real happy the way Ryan pitched.  He used his amazing slider perfectly, and spotted his fastball (at his locations), kept defense in game (low pitch counts), etc.!  Twins offense still struggled, but Ryan's game kept me watching!  His stats this year are All-Star;  he will probably be only Twin making that game.

[stringer bell]

The Twins have earned the cynicism and skepticism heaped on them in this thread and most others on Twins Daily. They can win some people back with a good road trip to Cleveland and Boston, and get a lot of attention on them depending on what happens with the two winter pro teams in the playoffs. 

The feather in the cap for the Falvey years would be pitcher development, which has happened slowly, but where tangible progress has been made. The Twins don't get full credit for Ryan, but then again they traded for him (and López and SWR). Add in Ober (arrived and established) with Festa, Matthews and Morris on the cusp and that is a bigger stockpile than I can ever remember. Pitching is the key to sustained success and the Twins have more good young (in terms of years of service) pitching than just about anyone. 

[umterp23]

The healthy hurt chart is color backwards. Green to me means go you are healthy and red is stop your hurt.  Don’t think Vázquez is hurt as he just wasn’t playing enough to be out there every other day. Yes he and Jeffers had banged up hands but Jeffers has earned some more starts as he is playing better both offensively and defensively than Vázquez. 
 

Play the schedule you are given, so beat up the teams you are supposed to and then build momentum. Big stretch of games this week

[jkcarew]

This is why I love Ryan. He challenges…all the time. When he doesn’t have his top command, good lineups will ding him (or worse) occasionally. But his stuff is good enough that average/weak lineups aren’t going to do TOO much even when he doesn’t have his top command. And he BELIEVES this. It makes him fearless. And it always makes him our best candidate to go deep in any given game to save the bullpen.

[dxpavelka]

On 4/27/2025 at 8:08 PM, LastOnePicked said:

Yup, we agree. Those were the teams on the schedule at that time. Glad we got that squared away. Let's see how they do against the next few foes.

Regardless, I'm still calling for Baldelli's job. Let the galled jade wince ... my grass remains untouched.

turns out nobody really cares what you're calling for