MINNEAPOLIS -- The Cleveland Guardians continue to be a thorn in Joe Ryan and the Twins' side.
The Guardians didn’t tag him for six home runs this time around like his last start against them on July 2. However, their lineup did work Ryan’s pitch count up to 84 through just four innings, scoring four runs in that span and giving the All-Star an early exit in a brutal 9-2 loss for the Twins.
“We’ve put ourselves multiple times in a chance to win a series, and we have not been able to complete it for one reason or another," said Twins manager Derek Shelton. "That’s definitely frustrating.”
The Guardians wasted no time getting to Ryan, as Steven Kwan hit a home run on Ryan’s second pitch of the game. Jo Adell would tag another homer off Ryan to lead off the third inning that left his bat at 116.8 mph, one of the hardest-hit home runs Ryan has allowed this year.
Cleveland would tag two more runs on Ryan in the fourth, making it a 4-1 game before he left. The swing-and-miss stuff wasn’t present for Ryan, as he only had five whiffs on his pitches and one strikeout.
"I think 'battle' is probably the best way to put it,” Ryan said. “Just kind of long at-bats, throwing the ball for the most part in spots where we wanted to throw it. They were just kind of beating me to it there. It's frustrating when it's a day like that, and yeah, they've had a pretty good approach all year, I'd say."
Tanner Bibee held the Twins' offense to just two hits and one run through six innings, with a Kody Clemens RBI double in the third. Trevor Larnach crushed his 13th home run of the year on Bibee’s first pitch in the seventh inning.
The Twins' loss puts them at 70-79, nine games under .500, and all but eliminates the hopes for a postseason push. The Twins are still mathematically in contention, but having a 7-13 stretch over their past 20 games has put them in a deep hole that’ll be hard to climb out of in their final 13 games.
“It doesn't feel like we're far, but we're far enough that we're not in the conversation,” said Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers. “It's easy to sit here and look at the stretch we went through, understanding going into that stretch how important those two and a half weeks were, and then to come out and win, what, four games? That's not the job we had to do, and here we are.”