TODAY: The Twins officially reinstated Ryan from the 15-day IL, and righty Jordan Balazovic was optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move.
AUGUST 25: The Twins are listing Joe Ryan as the probable starter for tomorrow evening’s game with the Rangers. They’ll need to reinstate him from the 15-day injured list. Ryan will oppose Max Scherzer in the third contest of a four-game set.
Ryan missed three weeks after straining his left groin. It isn’t clear if he’d been pitching through discomfort before his IL placement. His results immediately prior to landing on the shelf had taken a sharp downturn, though. Ryan carried a 3.70 ERA through 107 innings into the All-Star Break. He was tagged for 18 runs in 19 frames in four starts out of the Break, pushing his season mark to a middling 4.43 earned runs per nine.
Whether that was directly tied to his groin concern, the Twins will hope the few weeks off allows Ryan to recapture his early-season form. His return could lead to a roster decision for the front office and manager Rocco Baldelli. Ryan joins Pablo López and Sonny Gray at the top of the rotation. The Twins have filled out the starting staff with Bailey Ober, Kenta Maeda and Dallas Keuchel — whose contract was selected at the time Ryan landed on the IL — this month.
Maeda has a 2.91 ERA while striking out 32% of opponents in 11 starts since returning from an IL stint of his own at the end of June. Ober still has minor league options remaining, but he’s been a quietly effective rotation piece. Over 21 starts and 118 2/3 innings, the third-year hurler owns a 3.41 ERA and has fanned just under a quarter of batters faced. He’s clearly deserving of a spot on the big league staff.
Perhaps that leaves Keuchel as the odd man out. The former Cy Young winner has tossed 13 innings over three outings, allowing seven runs. He has struck out just three against four walks and a hit by pitch. He’s averaging 87.5 MPH on his sinker and has gotten swinging strikes on only 6.3% of his pitches.
On the other hand, Keuchel’s ground-ball rate sits at an excellent 56.3%. That’s not quite at the levels of his peak days in Houston but is markedly above last season’s 50.2% mark. Keuchel also kept the ball on the ground at a huge 61.1% clip through six Triple-A starts before his call-up, posting a 1.13 ERA in the process.
Earlier this week, Dan Hayes of the Athletic wrote that the Twins were considering the possibility of a six-man rotation after Ryan’s activation. That’d allow the coaching staff some flexibility in workload management. Maeda missed all of last season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, though he’s only at 74 2/3 frames this year. Ober has shouldered the heaviest work of his career in 2023. Including four Triple-A starts in the opening month, he’s at 136 1/3 frames for the year. His previous high for combined innings was 108 1/3 during the ’21 campaign.
Hayes also indicates that piggybacking some combination of Ober, Maeda and Keuchel could be on the table. That’d be another means of limiting workload while reducing the number of times those pitchers face an opponent a third time in a game. While keeping all six starters on the roster would temporarily shorten the bullpen, teams are permitted to add one pitcher to the MLB club on September 1.
American league central giant’s, the big three, Minnesota, Cleveland, and Detroit, are laying down the law tonight to playoff teams in the West, and East. What a night for the division. Detroit’s powerhouse rookie lit up Houston tonight after being no hit through 7. Parker Meadows with ice water in veins, had his first R.B.I. and H.R in game winning walk off fashion.
Cleveland took down the Jay’s, and Minnesota is still ringing up the score against Texas, great night for all.
Take it easy. The central division stinks. The 3rd wildcard is excited to play the central division winner
He’s being facetious and flippant.
@MPrck
Houston is a garbage team this year. They’ll miss the playoffs this year so no surprise they got beat by the Tigers.
Increasingly looking like the free-falling Rangers won’t be one one the teams to enjoy that privilege. What a group of whiny pwipes
“It isn’t clear if he’d been pitching through discomfort before his IL placement.”
Yes, it was. He admitted he had been hiding the injury from the team and was attempting to treat it himself. startribune.com/joe-ryan-twins-injured-list-groin-…
I’m not an ass, in real life, but the heck if this is Rocco’s fault-it’s ALL about Falvey and Levine with those Nintendo machines on their foreheads with the overboard analytics-they have BOTCHED all of the trades, no waiver wire stuff making any sense-where is Terry Ryan (Greatest legend)…..sombody get the nice Pohlads out of bed-the whole thing is just depressing). Great peeps on the team, but the organization top down, just something wrong-great guys, no doubt, but it’s really off ship.
An article about Joe Ryan seems like the wrong place to go on a rant about Falvine BOTCHING ALL the trades.
I was just thinking the Twins are the sleeper team for the playoffs. They only need to do just enough to win the division. If they keep the rotation and pen rested and manage the health of the lineup, they could emulate the 87 Twins.
Agreed. Since the break twins are second in baseball in OPS. Add in a really solid top 3 and a sneaky good back end of the bullpen and they could make some noise
In theory any team could emulate the not very good 1987 Twins team and just get hot at the right moment. The ’87 Twins are widely regarded as one of the worst teams in baseball history to win the World Series.
It’s a better strategy to have a good team.
Kirby Picket
Kent Hrbeck
Gary Gaetti
Tom Brunnansky
Don Baylor
Roy Smalley
Greg Gagne
Dan Gladden
Frank Viola
Bert Blyleven
Jeff Reardon
Juan Berenguer
Dan Schatzedder
Joe Niekro
Not the worst.
Well, Falvey threw Baldelli under the bus last year when talking about bullpen and starter management saying the TTO avoidance was not a front office strategy.
Terry Ryan had some skills, but he wasn’t up to the task anymore, and just for the record, Joe Pohlad was clear about being out of patience with the front office earlier this year.
PS-If they half wit (No idea), would be time to at least extend Gray and Pagan, wouldn’t u think.
Good for the Twins. Should be a tough team to face with pitching they have. If only they had more consistent offense, the Twins would be a force in the playoffs.
Second in MLB in team OPS since the all star break
and 16th in ERA and 19th in FIP since then.
And much of that has been Joe Ryan playing though injury, terrible low leverage bullpen and one truly awful Keuchel start
Pablo, Gray and Kenta have been fantastic.
@ForDoingNothing. Say it with me. Joe Ryan wasn’t actually hurt, but he made up an excuse for why balls were landing in the seats rather than the field.
He gave up two more home runs the other night, but got lucky there weren’t a bunch of base runners. No velocity change in his pitches while he was “hurt.”. It was just an excuse for the Twins to give him a reset.
I am predicting a complete game shutout for him today.