MINNEAPOLIS — It was a great first inning for the Minnesota Twins and starter Joe Ryan in Thursday’s home opener against the Houston Astros.
Ryan struck out the side, whiffing the All-Star trio of Jose Altuve, Isaac Paredes and Yordan Alvarez while averaging 94.3 mph with his fastball. And the Twins’ lineup scored two runs off Astros starter Hunter Brown to take an early lead.
But then everything unraveled, for the Twins and for Ryan, in a 5-2 loss at Target Field that dropped Minnesota to 2-5 on the season, including 0-4 when not facing the lowly Chicago White Sox.
Ryan gave up back-to-back homers to Christian Walker and Jeremy Peña to begin the second inning. He surrendered two more runs during a messy fourth inning in which he plunked the leadoff batter, balked two runners up a base and allowed both to score on a Brendan Rodgers single that might otherwise have been an inning-ending double play.
His fastball, which reached as high as 95.1 mph in the first inning, was down in the low 90s for most of his final four innings, failing to top 90 mph several times. Ryan, who missed the final six weeks of last season with a shoulder injury, downplayed the in-game velocity decline.
“I wasn’t feeling too much fatigue,” Ryan said. “I think it was just getting in the rhythm again coming off the injury. … I’m not too worried about it.”
Ryan’s counterpart Brown shook off his difficult first inning to shut out the Twins for the next five frames, retiring 15 of the final 16 batters he faced. Houston’s bullpen followed with three no-hit innings against a Minnesota lineup held to three runs or fewer for the fifth time in seven games.
“(Brown) is one of the better starting pitchers in the game when he’s on, and we got a look at that,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We ran into some excellent pitching.”
Brown was indeed one of the league’s top starters last year, posting a 3.49 ERA with 179 strikeouts in 170 innings, but the Twins have also made most of the pitchers they’ve faced this season look excellent by hitting .180 with a .534 OPS through seven games.
So far, the lineup’s early struggles are looking similar to last season’s, when the Twins hit just .195 in their first 20 games, digging an early hole with a 7-13 record.
CHRISTIAN SKYWALKER. #BuiltForThis pic.twitter.com/WkUXobfRYs
— Houston Astros (@astros) April 3, 2025
Byron Buxton running healthy
Byron Buxton had two of the Twins’ five hits Thursday and neither left the infield, as the center fielder showed his trademark speed — and improved overall health — to beat out a pair of infield singles and steal his first base of the season.
“When you’re healthy, it gives you that peace of mind to just go out there and play the game that you want to play and have fun doing it,” Buxton said. “To be able to have that back in the arsenal obviously is fun. It puts a little more pressure on the defense. That’s my job, cause a little chaos over there and try to get us that run.”
Buxton hit his first homer of the season Wednesday, a 446-foot blast against the White Sox, and has made multiple standout catches in center field. It’s a sign the oft-injured 31-year-old is feeling as good as he has in a long time after a rare healthy offseason and spring training.
Byron Buxton CRUSHED this ball 446 feet 🚀 pic.twitter.com/cjHwwA1SfW
— MLB (@MLB) April 2, 2025
“He’s moving well,” Baldelli said. “He’s playing aggressively. When he’s running the bases like that, he really changes the game for us. He gets on base a couple times with his legs. He’s obviously not just explosive, he’s one of the most exciting players in the game. He does it on all sides. He hits the big home run (Wednesday), and then you see what he does with his legs.”
Buxton started each of the Twins’ first seven games in center field after playing 102 games last season, his most since 2017.
“Buck had a great offseason and a great spring training,” Baldelli said. “He looks fantastic. Explosive. He’s running really well right now. And he wakes up the next morning ready to play.”
Last home opener under Pohlads?
Thursday was the Twins’ first home opener without Dave St. Peter as team president since 2003. There’s a chance it was also the Twins’ last of 41 home openers under the Pohlad family’s ownership.
It was hard not to think about that while looking at a non-sellout Target Field crowd that appeared to be about two-thirds full despite an announced attendance of 36,783, watching a struggling team with a payroll $20 million lower than the division-winning, playoff-drought-ending 2023 season.
Twins fans won’t, and shouldn’t, forget the dispiriting, budget-driven decisions made by the Pohlads since the 2023 success and the direct line from the ballpark’s euphoria of October 2023 to the malaise of April 2025.
Uncertainty is scary, and there’s also understandably plenty of skepticism surrounding the Pohlads’ ongoing efforts to sell the team, particularly after Justin Ishbia dropped out of the bidding. But a potential ownership change could have a much bigger long-term impact on the Twins than anything that happens on the field all season, let alone Thursday against the Astros.
In some ways, then, this entire season is being played in the shadow of the ownership situation, which has already negatively affected the front office’s roster-building options for the past two largely stagnant offseasons. After more than four decades of the Pohlads at the helm, this is a team and a fan base ready for change, hopefully by the next home opener.
(Photo of Joe Ryan: David Berding / Getty Images)
