Top pitching prospect Joe Ryan made his Twins debut on Wednesday and looked pretty good. He made one mistake, allowing a three-run home run in the third inning, but otherwise struck out five over five innings with one walk on 89 pitches — 60 of them for strikes.
Unfortunately, Ryan took the loss because the Twins lineup produced another punchless effort, getting shut out on two hits to lose 3-0 to the Chicago Cubs. Brent Rooker had both hits for the Twins.
Randy Dobnak gets the ball Friday in Tampa.
Extra innings…
-Pitcher Kenta Maeda underwent Tommy John surgery on Wednesday, but given the recovery time, Maeda may miss some or all of the 2022 season, according to MLB.com.
-The Payette County Museum was open today, so we stopped by for a little more Harmon Killebrew history and they had it in the form of a display dedicated to the former slugger. The display included his Payette Packers uniform, the semi-pro team he played for before he turned pro, and a Washington Senators jersey.
I’m about halfway through “Ultimate Slugger,” the 2012 biography of Harmon Killebrew by sportswriter Steve Aschburner.
There’s a made-for-Hollywood moment in the book. In spring 1964, the Twins were in New York to play the Yankees when the father of Jack Guiney, 8, reached out to Harmon to see if he would visit his son in the hospital. His son, an altar boy, had suffered burns over 50 percent of his body after his church garments caught fire while lighting candles. The boy’s favorite player — Harmon Killebrew, Aschburner writes.
Killebrew visited the boy and the young Guiney said he would watch him on TV. Harmon’s reply? “Maybe I’ll hit you a couple.”
According to the book:
“Whoa. Not just one? A couple? Even for a sizzling Killebrew that would be a tough order, certain to disappoint a sick young boy. So in the first inning, with one on, one out, and three Minnesota runs already in, Killebrew chased Ralph Terry with a two-run homer to left. He singled in the fourth, struck out in the sixth, and went to the plate in the eighth with the Twins up 6-2 for what likely would be his final time on that trip. Yankees reliever Steve Hamilton always tried to work Killebrew low and away, offering nothing he could pull with his power stroke. So Killebrew went down and drove Hamilton’s pitch over the wall in right, where Ruth had dumped so many before him.”
