Willi Castro's two-run homer gives Twins first victory over Rays this year

Tuesday was "Remember Me?" Night at Target Field, and it's hard to say which ex got the better of his old teammates. Joe Ryan, a former member of the Rays organization, didn't make it through the fifth inning of his first career start against Tampa Bay but gave up only two runs. Former Twin Zack Littell, making his first start at Target Field since the final day of the 2018 season, was dominant, taking a two-hitter into the seventh inning, but he wound up giving up three runs.

So let's just declare Louie Varland the winner.

Varland, the once-and-future Twins starter who has been reinvented this month as a bullpen hero, pitched a seemingly effortless 2⅓ shutout innings, helping the Twins beat the Rays for the first time this season, 3-2.

"He looks great," Ryan said of Varland, a St. Paul native who bailed him out with two runners on base in the fifth, retiring Josh Lowe on a routine fly ball. "It's a great spot for him right now. And that cutter is so good. I was telling him, the fastball's a great pitch, but that cutter is special."

The Rays must have thought so, too, because Varland (4-3) struck out the side in the sixth, blowing put-away cutters past three straight hitters. He closed his show-stealing performance with a popup and a double play in the seventh, and the Twins' bullpen took it from there, closing out the Rays to reduce their American League Central-clinching magic number to 10.

The reunion didn't mean much to either starter, they said.

"Honestly, I thought I might have more emotions or be more excited about it," Ryan said. "If it was right when I got traded [in 2021, for Nelson Cruz], or last year, it might feel different."

Same for Littell, who appeared in 43 games for the Twins from 2018 to 2020, mostly in relief. "There's no animosity," he said. "It's just fun to be back here. Once you get out there, it's just another game."

The righthander has been a savior for the Rays' injury-riddled rotation over the past two months, posting a 3.84 ERA in a dozen starts. He showed why in his first career start against Minnesota, relying on sliders and splitters to go with a mid-90s fastball and striking out a career-high eight.

"He has five legitimately good pitches that he uses, and he just fires them in the strike zone," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of his former player. "His strike-throwing is at a level today that you don't see very often."

But the Twins still victimized their old teammate, ambushing him with first-pitch swings.

One was a fastball in the middle of the plate to Edouard Julien, who smashed it 417 feet into the bullpens in the third inning. The other came in the seventh inning — only the second time in his career Littell had lasted so deep into a game — when Willi Castro golfed a first-pitch slider below the strike zone over the high wall in right-center.

That two-out blow scored Max Kepler ahead of Castro and turned Littell's triumphant homecoming into a hard-luck loss.

"I might lose sleep over that one tonight," Littell (3-6) said. "I thought I made a [good] pitch. I went back and looked really briefly, it was below the zone."

"I was ready for that pitch. I really like those pitches down low, so I took advantage," Castro said of his seventh homer this season. "The low pitch is a hot spot for me. I think he made a mistake."

He did, and it prevented Ryan from losing to his former organization. Ryan was solid for three innings, striking out five and not allowing a hit. But Brandon Lowe led off the fourth inning with a double, and Josh Lowe singled him home moments later.

In the fifth, René Pinto, who caught Ryan in Class AAA Durham two years ago, timed a 2-0 fastball and pummeled it eight rows up in left-center, his fifth homer of the season.

"He's a great guy. He can hit the ball a long way when he gets one there," Ryan said with a smile. "We won, so I can say that. "