Twins drop Giants, 2-1, thanks to Joe Ryan's arm and Trevor Larnach's bat

Phil Miller, The Minnesota Star Tribune on May 10, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — It’s hard to tell which recovery is more impressive: Joe Ryan’s or the Twins’. Either way, Ryan provided ample evidence Saturday that both are healthy again.

Ryan, floored by an “intense” bout of the flu earlier this week that delayed his scheduled Thursday start by two days, allowed just two hits and one run over six innings Saturday. That, plus three shutout innings from the bullpen, carried the Twins to a .500 record for the first time this season, made official with a 2-1 victory over the Giants at Target Field.

It’s also their second consecutive victory when scoring fewer than four runs; they were 0-17 this year before Friday’s 3-1 win.

Once eight games below break-even at 7-15, the Twins have now won seven consecutive games to improve to 20-20. And pitchers like Ryan are the biggest reason why.

It’s no wonder his teammates all wore his new Grateful Dead-themed T-shirt during batting practice.

Saturday’s performance marked the sixth time in eight starts that Ryan has allowed zero or one run, so it’s weird the Twins are just 3-5 when he starts. The right-hander didn’t issue a walk, retired 18 of the 20 batters he faced, and made only one mistake: a 1-2 fastball to Heliot Ramos that Ryan left in the middle of the plate. It landed three rows deep into the bleachers in left-center, giving San Francisco a brief lead.

Ramos turned out to be the Giants’ lone weapon on the night, collecting three of their four hits. After the home run, he hit a dribbler down the third-base line in the fifth inning, reaching first base ahead of Royce Lewis’ throw. But Ryan simply induced a pair of pop-ups — two of six the Giants hit off of him — to end the inning.

In the eighth, Ramos led off with a double off the right-field wall. He moved to third on LaMonte Wade Jr.’s fly ball to center, but then became a victim of the Twins’ recent improved play. As Ramos took a lead off third base, Twins catcher Christian Vázquez caught reliever Cole Sands’ first pitch to Patrick Bailey, then fired the ball to Lewis. A quick tag, and Ramos was erased.

The Giants also got a leadoff bunt single by Christian Koss in the ninth inning, but he was erased when Jhoan Duran turned Mike Yastrzemski’s chopper to the mound into a double play.

The Twins’ offense didn’t produce much off Giants right-hander Logan Webb, either. But Trevor Larnach made sure it was just enough. After Vázquez led off the third inning by drawing a walk, Larnach bashed Webb’s first pitch to him, a sweeper on the inside corner, into the seats in right field.

Webb didn’t give up another hit, much less a run, until the seventh inning, but Ryan made sure it didn’t matter.

The Twins drew an announced 23,812 for the rare weekend night game in May, but they were missing one spectator for much of it. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was ejected in the sixth inning for backing up Carlos Correa’s complaints about plate umpire Adrian Johnson’s strike zone.

“Three straight hitters — you think I’m making that up?” microphones for Fox Sports’ broadcast picked up of Baldelli’s rage. “It’s been like that the whole … game!”

It was the 16th ejection of Baldelli’s managerial career.