PHILADELPHIA — Joe Ryan started on Friday night and put his team in a decent position to earn a win. Innings later, Jhoan Duran’s familiar intro played on the stadium scoreboard and the closer trotted in to nail down the save.
Just as the Twins drew it up, right?
Not quite.
Duran, of course, was traded at the July 31 trade deadline, along with many of his teammates. The flame-throwing closer, instead, was in sealing up a 3-1 Phillies’ win over the Twins on Friday night at Citizens Bank Park.
Not much has gone to plan for the Twins this season, but Ryan’s season — which officially concluded on Friday night — was one of the things that has. Though he was outdueled by Aaron Nola, whose bid for perfection was broken up by Christian Vázquez’s solo home run with two outs in the sixth inning, Ryan turned in one final strong start to cap the best season of his career.
On Friday night, he limited the Phillies to two runs on five hits in his five innings pitched, featuring some of his best stuff of the season. His four-seam fastball, for example, was up nearly 2 mph from his season average.
Ryan pitched in 31 games (30 starts) and posted a 3.47 ERA across a career-high 171 innings pitched. While his second half of the season was rockier than the first — he had a 2.72 ERA before the all-star break and a 4.92 ERA after it — Ryan’s season represented another step forward as he was named an all-star for the first time in his career and established himself amongst the game’s best.
He took the loss Friday against Nola, who was virtually unsolvable for the Twins all night. Nola threw a season-high eight innings in the Phillies’ win, striking out nine. Aside from Vázquez’s home run, he gave up one other hit, a Kody Clemens leadoff triple in the eighth. Clemens ended the inning standing on third.
The Twins later mounted a challenge against Duran with both Vázquez and Ryan Jeffers collecting ninth-inning hits before he got Trevor Larnach to fly out to end the game.
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