Ryan's gem bursts in decisive seventh inning 

MINNEAPOLIS -- Joe Ryan was at his absolute best for six innings, then fell victim to one big swing in the seventh. But with the way the still-struggling and banged-up Twins offense has been playing, one mistake was enough.

Without Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, Joey Gallo and Alex Kirilloff, the Twins couldn’t muster anything against Triston McKenzie in the Guardians right-hander’s season debut. Ryan’s gem unraveled with a two-out, go-ahead RBI double by Josh Naylor in the top of the seventh that sent the Twins to a 2-1 loss and a split of the four-game series at Target Field.

“Is it easy when you’re without four and five who normally would be in the lineup? Absolutely not,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But this game isn’t built -- the baseball schedule and the season and the life here and what it takes to win isn’t built -- around the ideal situation all the time. It’s built upon, what are you going to do all those days when you don’t have everyone available?”

After scoring seven runs to win Thursday’s series opener, the Twins only mustered four runs in the final three games -- including a 1-0 win on Friday -- while waiting for Correa and Buxton to recover from their day-to-day injuries. With a short bench and unable to play matchups, the Twins struck out 16 times on Sunday, matching a season-high and extending their MLB-leading total.

And those continued offensive woes led to another familiar outcome that has grown all too common this season for these Twins: A low-scoring game that turned on a big late hit by one team. This time, that knock went to Cleveland.

Ryan admitted that he’d felt “kind of weird” in his last two outings against the Giants and the Astros, and that carried into his weeklong preparation for Sunday’s start. But once he took the mound, he felt the execution return -- particularly that of his splitter, which he likes against both right-handed and left-handed hitters. He cruised through six innings, facing the minimum on 71 pitches while allowing only a third-inning single.

There weren’t even any signs of real trouble as Ryan got the first two outs of the seventh inning before he ran into his first three-ball count of the game when facing José Ramírez with two outs and ultimately issued his first walk. The Twins could have turned to left-hander Caleb Thielbar, but Baldelli elected to keep Ryan in to face Naylor, who crushed a 1-0 fastball off the right-field wall to break the scoreless tie.

“That’s really what the game came down to, in a lot of ways,” Baldelli said. “I think what edged me to leave him in there was he really was so efficiently getting out after out after out in this game. He loses one hitter deep in a count, and I wanted to give him a chance to keep going with the way that he was pitching.”

Ryan’s velocity had been on the higher end of his range for much of his outing, topping out at 95.2 mph in the first inning, but that last pitch to Naylor clocked in at 89.3 mph, which he attributed to falling out of his rhythm at an unfortunate time.

“I think I was getting a little out front with it, so I was just trying to find the hang, get that out front a little bit,” Ryan said. “I feel like I just kind of got out of rhythm there, trying to find that.”

Twice now in two days, the Twins’ most effective starters -- Sonny Gray and Ryan -- have had solid outings unraveled by one big swing. Gray felt he executed his curveball in the zone to Will Brennan in the seventh inning on Saturday, but the outfielder crushed it for a go-ahead, two-run homer that proved the difference in the Twins’ loss.

Given the success of the Twins’ starting pitchers this season, Baldelli has stuck with them deeper into games -- and if the offense hadn’t fallen so silent for much of the year, these sorts of big swings would factor much less frequently into the ultimate outcomes of close games.

The Twins are hopeful to have Buxton (bruised ribs) and Correa (plantar fasciitis) back in the lineup on Tuesday, but the road doesn’t get easier as they face the MLB-leading Rays.

And the search for offensive answers will continue.