Joe Ryan shakes off illness, leads Twins past Giants for seventh straight win

Call it the Joe Ryan flu game.

Ryan, whose scheduled start was pushed after he fell violently ill, pitched six innings of one-run ball to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 2-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants, their seventh straight, Saturday night at Target Field in Minneapolis.

Ryan told reporters he had "never thrown up that much" as he did earlier this week when hurled 20-30 times on the Twins' off day on Monday. But on Saturday, the only hurling from Ryan came at the mound as he fanned seven while allowing just two hits and one run, his only blemish coming when he gave up a solo homer to Heliot Ramos in the second inning.

As great as Ryan was, it looked like he was operating at less than 100%. The FOX broadcast showed him lying down in the dugout on a couple occasions, and Ryan looked like he might have been a little gassed. But there certainly would've been no way of knowing his condition from looking at the box score, except for maybe pitch count — just 76 in the six innings.

The Giants (24-16) struck first on Ramos' homer, but the Twins (20-20) got it back, and gave Minnesota the lead, in one swing from Trevor Larnach in the third inning when he hit a 380-foot, two-run homer to right field for a 2-1 advantage.

That's where the score remained as Ryan was dealing and Giants starter Logan Webb otherwise kept the Twins quiet. Griffin Jax pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning, Cole Sands threw a quick shutout eighth inning and Jhoan Duran turned a double play and had a strikeout as he picked up the save, his seventh of the season, pitching a shutout ninth inning.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was ejected during the sixth inning of the game after arguing with the umpire after a called strike during Carlos Correa's at-bat. The pitch was outside, something the FOX announcers noted during the broadcast.

The Twins and Giants meet for the finale of their three-game series at 1:10 p.m. CT on Sunday at Target Field.

Recommended articles