Ryan trying to fix 'frustrating' home run problem

ST. LOUIS -- For a large swath of the season, it was nearly impossible to hit a home run off Joe Ryan. Now, opponents seemingly can’t stop going deep against him.

What is going on with the right-hander, who is usually the Twins’ steadiest starting pitcher?

The search for an answer continued without fruition on Wednesday night, when Ryan allowed seven runs on four more homers -- including three in the second inning -- putting the Twins in a deep early hole en route to a 7-3 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium that secured a losing road trip against a pair of last-place teams.

“I'm trying really not to dive into anything too deep and overthink anything, and just go into a spiral at all,” Ryan said. “Mentality-wise, I feel still pretty even-keeled and where I was. I'm not trying to ride too many highs early in the season for that reason.

“You know you're going to have bad ones. You never really expect it to go on this long.”

Though Ryan has maintained that outward composure, he’s clearly searching. After allowing three homers in the second inning, Ryan emerged from the dugout for the next frame without his long sleeves, just “trying to change things up,” he said.

In the fourth, Ryan reverted back to his old windup in which he brought his arms over his head.

Still, nothing has fixed the long ball woes, which led to his season-high seven runs allowed on nine hits in four innings.

Following the homers by Tyler O’Neill, Jordan Walker, Lars Nootbaar and Alec Burleson, Ryan has allowed 17 long balls in 32 1/3 innings across his past seven starts, the most in a seven-game span by a Twins pitcher.

Ryan was tagged for eight homers across his five July starts, most in the American League.

Since Ryan threw his first career shutout on June 27 against the Red Sox, he has allowed 31 earned runs in 32 1/3 innings, equivalent to an 8.63 ERA. He yielded at least one homer in each of those starts, and multiple homers in five of them.

“Joe knows things don’t fix themselves,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s going to have to work for it, and that’s what he is doing right now. … It doesn’t look like he feels that comfortable, because he hasn’t found what he’s looking for yet.”

What’s frustrating to Ryan is that he feels his between-starts work, plans, pitch quality and execution have been strong, and he’s largely putting the ball where he wants to, he said. But opponents are still doing damage against him.

And amid this stretch, Ryan’s control metrics have sparkled, with 52 strikeouts and 10 walks in those 32 1/3 frames.

“That's just frustrating, when you're executing the plan and those kinds of results happen,” Ryan said. “Hits are going to be one thing, but I think with damage there, it's a little bit more frustrating.”

Baldelli indicated that Ryan needs to get more consistent with the usage and execution of his offspeed pitches, the sweeper and splitter that have been almost totally built from scratch over the past 12 months. That has often been a question with Ryan since his prospect days, as he has always relied heavily on the fastball he throws around 60% of the time.

Fourteen of the homers have come against the fastball, including two against the Cardinals, but seven have also come against the splitter, again including a pair in this game. And concerningly, the offspeed stuff didn’t exactly seem to keep St. Louis off-balance, as the club didn’t swing and miss at any of Ryan's sweepers or sliders until the final two batters of his outing.

Ryan couldn’t find a reason for that, either.

“Good question,” Ryan said. “Hop over there and ask them, probably. But yeah, I don't know.”

The Twins have seen tough outings from their rotation in the second half, but throughout his career, Ryan has usually been their rock amid these sorts of difficulties.

But when Baldelli was asked if he felt like the club was getting closer to an answer to Ryan’s struggles, the skipper didn’t have a direct answer.

“The way I would probably answer that is, we’re just always working towards the answer or towards the best possible outing that we can get, outing to outing,” Baldelli said.

“It applies to every one of our guys. I know why Joe is the discussion point today, but we’re always going to be approaching it that way.”