CHICAGO — Joe Ryan, assigned No. 74 as a rookie, says modesty — and his last name — prevents him from ever asking to wear No. 34 in the future. But let's not be too hasty.
Ryan had a game Wednesday that MLB all-time strikeout king Nolan Ryan, whose No. 34 is retired by three different teams, would be proud to claim, except perhaps for the length. The Twins rookie, making just his fourth major league appearance, mowed down Cub after Cub with a fastball that, judging by how many they took, few batters expected to wind up in the strike zone.
Ryan struck out 11 of the 18 hitters he faced over five innings — the first Twin ever to rack up so many K's in five innings or less — including the last seven in a row, and the Twins left Wrigley Field with a 5-4 victory over the Cubs and a sweep of their two-game series.
While Ryan and four relievers mostly silenced Chicago's passive hitters, Max Kepler continued to make himself at home in the National League's oldest park. The veteran outfielder, mired in a seasonlong slump that worsened in September, cracked two home runs and a double, driving in three runs for the first time since July 5.
The victory over their final National League opponent of 2021 allowed the Twins to split the season series with the Cubs and finish the season with a 20-20 interleague record, just the fourth time in 11 years they have avoided a sub-.500 record against NL teams.
Ryan, whose last start ended with an injury scare when he was struck on his right wrist by a Myles Straw line drive last Tuesday, showed no ill effects a week later. Quite the contrary, in fact. His fastball sat in the 92-94 mph range, and clearly had plenty of movement. The Cubs swung and missed at 14 of his pitches, but six times watched strike three go by.
Sure, the Cubs are the easiest team to strike out in MLB history — they are on pace to become the first team ever to whiff 1,600 times in a season — but Ryan made it look easy.
The 25-year-old righthander, who won a silver medal with Team USA in the Tokyo Olympics this summer, needed only 13 pitches to strike out the side in the first inning. He didn't add to the total in the second, his only hiccup of the night, when he walked Ian Happ to open the inning and allowed a double to Matt Duffy. After a pop-out, both runners scored on Nick Hoerner's single, but a double-play ball from Trayce Thompson ended the inning and allowed Ryan to get back on track.
He whiffed Rafael Ortega in the third, and then embarked on a near-record-breaking run, striking out Patrick Wisdom to end the third, then all three hitters in the fourth and fifth. But any chance he had to tie Kenta Maeda's Twins record of eight consecutive strikeouts ended when manager Rocco Baldelli, being cautious with the rookie who had thrown 86 pitches, summoned Juan Minaya to pitch the sixth.
Minaya, Tyler Duffey and Jorge Alcalá each pitched uneventful innings, while the Twins' offense added an insurance run on a Nick Gordon double and a sacrifice fly by Andrelton Simmons.
Then the Twins had to survive a typically nerve-wracking ninth inning by closer-by-default Alex Colome, who allowed three hits and two runs before striking out Thompson to end the game.
