WEST SACRAMENTO — Joe Ryan had one curse word running through his head after he loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth inning and fell behind the next batter 3-0. The self-proclaimed quick thinker then went through a range of thoughts as the pitch clock dwindled before delivering his next pitch to CJ Alexander.
“I was like ‘This is a big situation. I should throw a (expletive) strike,’” Ryan said.
Two pop ups, which triggered the infield fly rule, and a groundout later and Ryan was out of the inning, preserving the Twins’ lead in the biggest moment of their 10-4 win over the Athletics on Monday night in Sacramento.
“I would say this about Joe’s fifth inning: It didn’t start out too great. It finished with probably one of the more impressive pitch-making sequences that you’ll see,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I told him it was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen him do, and we’ve seen him do a lot of great things.”
Ryan’s start wasn’t easy — he pitched five innings, none of them 1-2-3 and uncharacteristically walked four and hit two. He gave up four runs, including three in the fourth inning on a Lawrence Butler home run that just cleared the fence in center field and likely would not have gone out in most places around the league.
But when it mattered most, when the Twins’ lead had dwindled from six runs to two and they needed Ryan to bear down and protect it, he did.
“Sick,” was Byron Buxton’s description of Ryan’s escape act. “You can see him lock it in a little bit more and that was fun. For him, not loading the bases, but seeing him dominate like that, that was fun.”
Buxton did plenty of dominating himself on Monday, driving in five of the Twins’ 10 runs, which matched his career high.
The Twins (32-27) jumped all over Athletics (23-38) starter Luis Severino in the second inning, a rally which accounted for six of their runs. In that inning, after Ty France gave them a lead with a bases-loaded two-run single, Buxton hit a double to deep left-center field that left fielder Drew Avans could not corral, bringing home another pair of runs.
In the sixth inning, Buxton hit a hard single past diving first baseman Tyler Soderstrom, pushing the lead from 6-4 to 8-4 at the time, and he added a sacrifice fly in his final plate appearance.
“Buck’s been having tremendous at-bats. These at-bats were just terrific,” Baldelli said. “He was on a lot of pitches.”
It’s an especially promising sign for the Twins and their center fielder, who missed two weeks with a concussion and admitted there was relief in coming back and producing right away. In the three games he’s played since returning, Buxton has two hits in each of them.
“Obviously might not show it but just having that thought of taking a couple games to get your swing back,” Buxton said. “That’s kind of the thought when you miss 11, 12 games. Then you start getting the creeps, do I need to go on a rehab assignment, see pitching? And so it was more about trusting who I am and knowing that I did everything I was supposed to do to prepare myself for returning.”
In addition to Buxton and France, Brooks Lee drove in a pair of runs and Trevor Larnach one of his own as the Twins continued to tack on runs through the later innings of the game.
“You separate by getting those big hits and we were able to separate tonight,” Baldelli said. “That’s when you really change the game in your favor. We did it by having a really good approach.”
