Ryan 'best version of Joe' in three-hit shutout

MINNEAPOLIS -- The gentle, relaxed guitar riff of “Fire on the Mountain” by the Grateful Dead lilted through the hot, humid Minneapolis air, as it always does when Joe Ryan gets ready to take the mound at home. The Minnesota defense took the field and started to throw the ball around.

Then, the man himself emerged from the dugout -- and the stadium erupted in sustained cheers.

The vibe was exactly that of the first inning of any of Ryan’s starts -- but this time, it was actually the ninth inning. That musical salute and ovation were a recognition of a pitching performance already unlike any these fans have seen in a long time -- and it still paled in comparison to the roars that erupted when the final out settled into Willi Castro’s glove minutes later, finishing the Twins’ first complete-game shutout in a half-decade in a 6-0 win over the Red Sox.

“That was awesome, getting the walkout going again, then having their leadoff hitter again, it was like, ‘Oh, [shoot], we’re in the first inning again,’” Ryan said. “I felt good. I felt like I was just getting kind of warmed up. The crowd was just electric.”

Ryan pitched like it was still the first inning, too, showing no signs of fatigue as he emerged from the dugout for the ninth inning at 98 pitches before he neatly set down the top of the Red Sox lineup on 14 more -- including 13 fastballs -- to cap a 112-pitch effort that marked the Twins’ first complete-game shutout since José Berríos blanked the Orioles on April 1, 2018.

It was the first nine-inning complete game -- shutout or otherwise -- of the Rocco Baldelli era in Minnesota. As the Twins rotation has largely thrived all season, it’s Ryan -- the water polo player and surfer from the Bay Area who keeps his hair long and rides a vintage bike to work -- who has perhaps given them the highest upside of all.

And when it all comes together, it usually looks something like this. He misses bats, but he attacks the strike zone to get quick outs and pitch deep into games. He didn’t issue a walk and scattered only three singles -- with none of those runners advancing beyond first base -- but still remained efficient as he racked up nine strikeouts, most in a Twins complete-game shutout since 2007.

“Throw strikes, and throw a lot of them, and use good pitches to get them out,” Ryan said. “That’s what it is. Sometimes, they hit the ball farther than they need to in my game, and then today, they didn’t do that. So, that was nice.”

It sounds really simple when the relaxed, understated right-hander puts it that way -- and it really didn’t take much complexity, because this version of Ryan doesn’t need to get fancy.

Of the 112 pitches Ryan threw, 110 were either the fastball or the splitter -- and that’s all the more impressive considering he didn’t start toying with the splitter until this past offseason, and introduced it to his arsenal in place of his conventional changeup when this season began.

It’s not that he needed it to be this successful; he carried a 3.52 career ERA in 46 starts entering Thursday, and he started Opening Day for the Twins last season. But he has continually evolved, going from the Rays prospect who almost exclusively threw fastballs, to having upped trust in his conventional slider and changeup, to, now, this version who relies most heavily on his splitter and mixes in a sweeper.

“It's taken a little while for him to realize, and for us to realize -- for us, as in the catchers, the coaches, the team -- that he might be this kind of guy you saw today,” catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “A couple sliders mixed in there, but we're going to go with his two best pitches. I think you saw the best version of Joe today from a stuff standpoint, and just from a pure attacking standpoint.”

That stuff sustained, to the very end, to the point where Ryan just kept throwing his fastball, over and over again, in the ninth inning -- because, as he put it after the game, “Why not?”

“There was no way around letting him just go out there and finish that game because of the way he was responding as the game went on,” Baldelli said. “He just kept getting more and more dialed in, more and more competitive as he got closer, and wanted it more.”