SAN FRANCISCO – Rocco Baldelli had never set foot in Oracle Park for a baseball game before Friday night. “I did, however, once sit in the stands here for a Dead & Co. concert,” the Twins manager said.
Twins fall to Giants 7-1 as Joe Ryan struggles and home run streak ends
The Twins failed to hit a home run for the first time in 29 games, falling three short of tying the major league record.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
July 13, 2024 at 5:53AM
Did he enjoy the music more than the game?
“Significantly more,” the Twins manager said. “Significantly.”
Understandably so. Instead of cheering for an encore, Baldelli watched his team make a handful of defensive mistakes, watched Joe Ryan issue a season-high three walks and tie his season-high by giving up five runs, and watched his team’s historic home run streak come to an end. It all amounted to a 7-1 rout by the Giants.
“We didn’t play our cleanest baseball, we didn’t have good enough at-bats, we didn’t do enough,” Baldelli said with a shrug. “From the start, we could have done some things differently.”
Things like, not misplaying Jorge Soler’s leadoff blooper into right field into a first-inning triple with an ill-advised dive by Matt Wallner. That turned into a run, and an inning later, another mistake — Willi Castro dropping a throw from Brooks Lee that turned an inning-ending double play into just a forceout — turned into two runs.
That’s because Mike Yastrzemski ripped a double to the wall in center field, just out of the reach of Byron Buxton, who collided with the wall while trying to make the play. Buxton was OK, but Estrada scored on the double, and Yastrzemski came home when shortstop Brett Wisely dropped a short fly ball into shallow center field.
“We didn’t play good defense, and that’s usually how it shakes out. Got some extra-long innings,” Ryan said. “Didn’t get to go as deep into the game because of that, and I just gassed out a little quicker.”
Ryan, a San Francisco native, was annoyed by his own lack of control — he got behind 3-0 to three different hitters, rare for the righthander — but also by his team’s evident unfamiliarity with a ballpark the Twins had not visited since 2017.
“They’re big leaguers. We’ve got to make adjustments and know the ballpark. Do your homework and go out there and check out the field beforehand, know how it’s going to play,” Ryan said. “Every once in a while maybe some stuff [happens], but [it’s] not really an excuse, in my book.”
Wisely, the Giants’ No. 9 hitter, later tripled to the fence in right-center in the fifth inning, then scored on Soler’s single. He doubled home Matt Chapman, whom Ryan had walked, an inning later.
Wisely’s night, which raised his batting average to .286, was in contrast to the Twins’ ninth-place hitter. With Baldelli intent upon stacking righthanded hitters against San Francisco’s lefthander Kyle Harrison, catcher Christian Vázquez, batting only .199 on the season, served as the designated hitter for just the second time in 2024.
Vázquez wound up batting with runners on base in both of his at-bats, but it didn’t go well. He bounced a grounder to Harrison in the third inning, a ball that turned into a double play, and he struck out with two on and one out in the fifth.
The Twins were foiled by some strong Giants defense, as well as Harrison’s pitching. After Ryan Jeffers smacked a two-out double in the second inning, Lee hit what looked like a two-run homer to deep left field. But Conforto jumped with his back to the wall and turned into instead into the third out.
“Oh, yeah,” Lee said when asked if he thought he had hit his third homer as a big-leaguer. “I was like, that’s got a chance. I think the wind may have been blowing in because it just wasn’t an offensive ballpark, at least for us today. But yeah, thought I had it. I’ve got to do more pushups.”
Only in the sixth inning did the Twins manage to mar Harrison’s night, when Carlos Correa — who was booed in his first game here since the Giants tried to sign him in December 2022 — led off with a single and Carlos Santana doubled him to third.
Buxton lined out, but Willi Castro, batting against reliever Ryan Walker, hit a ground ball to first base that brought Correa home.
The Twins had homered in 28 consecutive games, tying the second-longest streak in major league history, and hoped to match the Yankees’ 31-game record this weekend. But Lee was the only Twins player to come close, and New York’s record is safe for now.
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