Twins 4, Blue Jays 3: Ryan Hurt But Bullpen Holds On To Split Series

[Hans Birkeland]

Image courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

Box Score
Starting Pitcher: Joe Ryan: 1/3 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K (9 Pitches, 5 Strikes, 55%)
Home Runs: None
Top 3 WPA: Andrew Morris (0.22), Victor Caratini (0.11), Luke Keaschall (0.09)
Win Probability Chart (Via BaseballSavant):

The Twins' slide into irrelevance continues, as they entered Sunday's game against Toronto losers in 13 of their past 16 games. To make matters worse, today's game was shown exclusively on Peacock, a streaming service used by approximately no one and which has lost NBC/Universal half a billion dollars and counting because our media landscape totally makes sense.

At least the Twins were trotting out their ace, Joe Ryan. Except he exited with elbow soreness nine pitches into the game, forcing the Twins to turn to their beleaguered young swingman, Andrew Morris, who threw well enough to escape the inning without any damage.

Does anyone remember the last time Joe Ryan exited early with injury? I remember.

Opposing Morris was postseason hero Trey Yesavage, who still has more playoff innings than regular season. His command was a little wobbly, but his rising fastball and devastating splitter were a big challenge regardless.

After retiring Byron Buxton in the first, Yesavage allowed a base hit to Trevor Larnach and Austin Martin drew an impressive walk. Victor Caratini then singled through the right side to bring home the game's first run.

Meanwhile Morris was really good, hitting 97 MPH on his fastball and locating his sweeper to keep the Blue Jays honest. He allowed two hits and a walk in 3 ⅔ innings, striking out three. He didn't allow much hard contact and really didn't face any trouble while keeping the Twins in the game.

The offense loaded the bases in the third, making Yesavage work and putting him on the ropes before the young righty got Royce Lewis to swing through a fastball in the zone to end the threat. He was done after 81 Pitches and four innings.

Braydon Fisher came on for the fifth inning, and the Twins jumped all over him. Caratini walked and scored on a Luke Keaschall double. Keaschall would score on a Kody Clemens double to the same spot in left center.

Then, in a moment that surprised everyone, Matt Wallner made contact off of a lefty, and scorched it to the same gap and off the wall to score Clemens. By my unofficial count, this was the first hit by Wallner against a lefty and his first hit to the opposite field since the Biden administration. Aaron Gleeman was then awoken like the undertaker to post some cherry-picked stats (probably).

The Jays made some noise in the sixth against the withered husk of Taylor Rogers. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a single off his fists, followed by a deep drive by Jesus Sanchez over Wallner's head in right. Sanchez slipped making the turn around first, making it a long single. Rogers managed to strike out Lenyn Sosa on a backup slider, but Dalton Varsho hit a perfect bunt up the first base line, beating Rogers to the bag and scoring Guerrero for Toronto's first run. Rogers ended up allowing three hits and hitting a batter, but escaped the inning by inducing a pop-up from catcher Taylor Heineman.

Things quieted down a bit from there, with the Twins putting up goose eggs against Blue Jays reliever Tommy Nance, while Rogers, Eric Orze and Kody Funderburk did just enough to keep the Jays offense dormant.

The ninth inning was handed to Justin Topa, who allowed an infield single before Kazuma Okamoto hit his fourth home run of the series to cut the deficit to one. Guerrero then smashed a single right under Keaschall's glove to put the tying run on base. Sanchez hit one nearly as hard that nearly took out Topa, but Sosa hit a hard grounder to Keaschall that he turned into a game ending double play.

Things I'm Tracking:

• Austin Martin looks unconscious, spitting on anything remotely close to being out of the zone and squaring up everything in it. With him, Larnach and Buxton all scorching hot, its kind of crazy that this team is losing so much.
• Caratini has cooled off after a fairly competent start to his Twins career, with his OPS below .600. He did reach base a few times today and his OBP is acceptable, but him being a professional hitter was a big reason why the team won eight of nine in that one good stretch that now seems a distant memory.
• Luke Keaschall is showing signs of life, with three doubles, including two today, in the past two games.
• Lewis looks pretty cooked, swinging out of his shoes and whiffing against fastballs in the zone

What’s Next: The Twins head to the nation's capital to face the Nationals in a three game set. Taj Bradley (3-1, 2.85 ERA) will face Cade Cavalli (1-1, 3.82 ERA) in a matchup of post-hype prospects. Cavalli has been hittable (1.66 WHIP, .772 OPS against) but has a good strikeout rate. Bradley has been great and should have a good matchup provided he can handle Washington's main stars, James Wood and CJ Abrams.

Postgame Interviews:

 

Bullpen Usage Chart:

	WED	THUR	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Orze	28	0	33	0	24	85
Morris	0	19	0	0	57	76
Banda	22	14	0	18	0	54
Rogers	13	0	8	0	32	53
Topa	0	12	0	10	17	39
Garcia	0	0	9	18	0	27
Funderburk	0	0	0	14	3	17
Klein	0	0	0	12	0	12

 

 

 

 

 

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[DJL44]

Dominance by the Twins bullpen and clutch hitting by Wallner, just like you would expect.

[Patzky]

Saints bullpen is Twinning today. :(

 

There is no help forthcoming.

 

But man, Kriedler Jennings Arcia.. on a tear.

[Dman]

Heck of a performance by Morris.  If these young arms can prove they belong at the MLB level the Twins could have the pitching they need under control for quite some time.

[jkcarew]

Nice to see Keaschall hitting the ball hard.

[soyouresayingtheresachance]

Wait and see on Ryan. Usually not good when a pitcher takes himself out of a game. 

Wallner, Keaschall. Caratini, and the bullpen helped spark a win today. Im sure we all saw that coming. 

[jorgenswest]

I really appreciate how Shelton has used Morris. He has outings of 40, 37, 47 and 67 pitches. If he ever needs to go into the rotation he is a few starts from being fully stretched out. It is possible to have a starter in the bullpen without restricting them to the bullpen for the duration of their careers. This isn’t new to Shelton. He used Luis Ortiz as a reliever then starter in 2024 with the Pirates.

[FlyingFinn]

Nice to see Wallner with a couple hits. If the Twins were looking to send him down, who comes up - Roden, nope, injured. Rodriguez, nope, injured, Jenkins, nope, injured. Wallner's living a charmed life. Here's his chance to go on a hot streak.

[Doctor Gast]

I have preached long relief for years. Long relief helps to save the rotation, especially with a bad BP. Morris saved the day, which started with a gut punch of learning Ryan's injury. I have to admit that when low-leverage Topa came into a high-leverage situation, I had doubts about the Twins' ability to win the game. They won but barely. 

[h2oface]

Postgame interview with Shelton is yesterday’s game, at least at around 6pm as I read this. 
 

https://x.com/twinstv/status/2050683770575954042?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^2050683770575954042|twgr^f211cfe6a9c480381066128293536bba9ece6a9d|twcon^s1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwinsdaily.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Ftwinstv%2Fstatus%2F2050683770575954042

[Vanimal46]

The Twins organization loses both Joe Ryan and Walker Jenkins to injury on the same day. Cursed. 

[Blyleven2011]

1 hour ago, Doctor Gast said:

I have preached long relief for years. Long relief helps to save the rotation, especially with a bad BP. Morris saved the day, which started with a gut punch of learning Ryan's injury. I have to admit that when low-leverage Topa came into a high-leverage situation, I had doubts about the Twins' ability to win the game. They won but barely. 

Morris pitched great going in cold after Ryan's departure , so many injuries to the pitching ...

I didn't watch the game but heard some parts on the radio , topa did make it interesting or made everyone nervous in top of ninth  , our offense scored 4 runs that turned out to be enough  ...

Glad the twins won , glad they split the series ...

Day off tomorrow  , the bullpen needs the rest  ...

[Glorybound]

Nothing is going to be easy for this Twins team. When you are counting on Topa to get the last three outs the percentages are rather low.

[JD-TWINS]

Keaschall has had some success over the weekend - much needed!!

Wallner with an RBI double off a lefty, or anybody, was impressive. A base hit later in the game - I nearly passed out.

If Wallner - Keaschall - Caratini - Bell - Lewis could approach “average performance” for MLB hitters the Team would be greatly improved……..can’t comment on Clemens due to a pretty poor history prior to ‘26….. my gut says they need to move on but that takes a plan.

Wallner …… hit .225 & get OBP to .325 with .400 slug% …….. that should not be out of reach for Matt.

Keaschall ……. hit .250 & get OBP to .325 with .340 slug% ……… that’s underperforming for him based on ‘25 stats - it’s OK though at this point.

Caratini ……. hit .230 & get OBP to .310 with .340 slug% ……. that’s attainable and expected headed into the year

Lewis ……. hit .240 & get OBP to .310 with .375 slug% ………way below the bar nearly everyone expects of Royce but OK in ‘26

Bell …… hit .235 & get OBP to .320 with .360 slug% ………. not difficult for Bell to attain 

NONE of these guys are near expectations for an “average season” from them.

NONE of these sets of goals terribly challenging for any of these 5 guys …….. just perform near your average expectation - don’t need to be All-Stars ……… Buxton - Jeffers - Martin - Larnach & now Lee are at or above their expectations…….they need some help!