Twins Video
Box Score
Starting Pitcher: Joe Ryan - 6 2/3 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 HR (102 pitches, 63 strikes)
Home Runs: N/A
Top 3 WPA: Ryan (.220), Byron Buxton (.171), Kody Clemens (.128)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)
Neither rain (a storm that delayed the game by almost two hours, with the Twins needing to get to the airport after the game to come home to Minnesota) nor heat (a trade deadline fire sale still hanging over the team) nor gloom of the future (the news, Wednesday morning, that the Pohlad family will remain in control of the Twins for the foreseeable) stays Joe Ryan from his appointed rotation spot. He took the mound in a damp and half-filled but constantly noisy Yankee Stadium on getaway night, and pitched like a man possessed.
Hot Schlittler and the Ryan Express
This game was the Twins' first chance to see Yankees rookie starter Cam Schlittler, and it did not start out as a fun learning experience. Firing a lively fastball that averaged 98 miles per hour and had some wiggle and adding two different breaking balls for good measure, Schlittle looked like a budding ace through the first three innings. He didn't allow a Twins baserunner that first time through the order. The top of the order couldn't get the ball out of the infield against him, and he racked up three strikeouts over the second and third innings.
Worked into just as impressive a lather by the time he spent waiting out the rain, though, Ryan was just as nasty. His stuff all had more velocity than usual, including his heater sitting 95 and nearly touching 98. The pitch also had good run, and though he didn't have great feel for anything else on the night, he scarcely needed it. Cody Bellinger connected for a long home run right down the right-field line, but otherwise, Ryan matched Schlittler through the early innings—then beat him in the middle frames.
Good Adjustments
As good as Schlittler looked the first time through the lineup, the Twins made an impressive round of adjustments and went into grind mode the second time they got to see him. Trevor Larnach led the top of the fourth with a seven-pitch walk that required him to foul off two high, hard, outer-third fastballs meant to put him away. Byron Buxton then worked an even longer at-bat, slamming a double to left at 114 miles per hour on the 10th pitch and wheeling Larnach around to third. Luke Keaschall, batting right behind Buxton in this one, then cashed in the chance by going up there swinging. He grounded out for the second time in the game, but this one brought home Larnach to knot the score at 1-1. Schlittler buckled down and escaped the jam without allowing Buxton to come home, but the tone had changed.
Ryan, on the other hand, only got stronger as the game progressed. He struck out the side in order in the bottom of the fourth, and that lively heater got three quick fly balls for outs in the fifth. Along the way, Ryan became more and more animalistic, more obviously than ever under the pale glare of the Yankee Stadium lights and with the infamously hot field mics lighting up over and over with his grunts and shouts on any pitch he didn't execute perfectly or that he felt should have been called a strike. Ryan's temperament on the mound is part of how he succeeds, but it also makes him a great showman. You can't turn away. He worked his gum mercilessly, screamed expletives a dozen times or more, and got into the habit of freezing to await called strikes he wasn't getting. He also, relentlessly, got outs.
The Twins broke through in a bigger way in the top of the sixth. With Schlittler out of the game, Buxton hit a Yerry De Los Santos offering blisteringly hard toward the hole at shortstop. Anthony Volpe managed to snare the ball, but first baseman Ben Rice couldn't handle his throw, and Buxton was aboard. Keaschall played a variation on that theme, with a hard-hit ground ball that hugged the third base line. Ryan McMahon would have had to make a perfect play and an exceptionally strong, off-balance throw all the way across the diamond to get an out against the speedy Buxton or Keaschall. He didn't even complete the first part of that mission.
That brought up Clemens, and it felt crucial that he get the runs home. Minnesota hadn't made much of that rally in the fourth, and had left Alan Roden on second after a stolen base in the fifth. De Los Santos hammered away at the bottom rail of the strike zone, but Clemens worked the count full and fouled off a good fastball at the knees on the outer edge. Finally, De Los Santos cracked and left a pitch up, and Clemens sent it leaning and bounding into the gap in right-center field. Buxton and Keaschall scored, and when Trent Grisham mishandled the ball, Clemens made it all the way to third base.
There was still no one out, and Clemens was just 90 feet away, but after two quick and unproductive outs, the Twins were in danger of not maximizing their chance yet again. Royce Lewis took care of business, though, lobbing a fly ball down the left-field line against a Mark Leiter Jr. slow curve. Cody Bellinger had the speed and the room to make the play, but he wasn't sure enough of his position and pulled up slightly, worried about the sidewall. The ball fell in, and Clemens became the fourth run of the game for the Twins.
Shutting the Door
Ryan only seemed more agitated than ever when he retook the mound for the bottom of the sixth, working with a three-run lead. He evinced frustration with the high bottom of the zone against Aaron Judge and never let it go, but he didn't allow the Yankees to do any damage. He ended up getting two outs in the seventh inning, too, and stretching past 100 pitches, trying to act as his own bullpen in the absence of the one the team traded away last month. As it turned out, though, that pen had his back, anyway. Kody Funderburk and Justin Topa slammed the door on New York, amid the obnoxiously loud Yankee Stadium sound system but relatively little noise from the early-departing Bronx crowd.
This was a great team win. The long at-bats and great payoffs from Larnach, Buxton and Clemens showed the approach the team needs to establish as a standard throughout the batting order. The disruptive combination of exit velocity and foot speed created the game-winning rally, as Buxton and Keaschall continue to look like the spine of the team's future. Ryan was excellent, even on a night when (other than in terms of fastball velocity) his stuff wasn't. It's too little and too late, but it was the kind of game the team must use as a blueprint as they plan their future success.
What’s Next?
Bleary-eyed, the Twins will roll out of bed for a 6:40 PM CT game back at Target Field Thursday night against the Tigers. The combination of the Yankees (in typical fashion) scheduling a night game ahead of their visitors' travel and the rain delay will mean they don't get into Minneapolis until the wee hours of the morning. Luckily, they only have to face—oh. Oh no. Tarik Skubal (11-3, 2.35 ERA) starts for Detroit, opposite Bailey Ober (4-7, 5.16 ERA) for the home nine.
Postgame Interviews
Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet
| FRI | SAT | SUN | MON | TUE | WED | TOT | |
| Hatch | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 99 | 0 | 99 |
| Tonkin | 0 | 18 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 56 |
| Kriske | 17 | 0 | 17 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 53 |
| Ramírez | 0 | 21 | 0 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 44 |
| Adams | 43 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 43 |
| Ohl | 0 | 0 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 |
| Topa | 0 | 15 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 61 |
| Sands | 9 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 34 |
| Funderburk | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 13 | 6 | 28 |
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