![\"Kauffman](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/STP-Z-2269449672_261209788.jpg\")
A general view as fog rolls in during the game between the Minnesota Twins and the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium on April 01, 2026 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire\/Getty Images)<\/p>\nKANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 Twins right-hander Joe Ryan did not really know what to make of his atypical performance against the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Ryan gave up five runs and nine hits over four innings, allowing the Royals to jump to a huge lead before the Twins offense woke up late in a 13-9 loss at a foggy and soggy Kauffman Stadium.<\/p>\n
Ryan also hit a batter and threw a wild pitch amid intermittent rain on a challenging night to play ball. The Twins fell to 1-4, though they scored eight runs over the final three innings after the Royals pulled stars Bobby Witt and Maikel Garcia from the game.<\/p>\n
Ryan, who entered with a 2.02 ERA and an 8-1 record in 11 career starts against the Royals and performed well in his first start of the season against the Baltimore Orioles a week ago, struggled almost from the first pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fell out of my delivery a little bit,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cIt was a tough one.\u201d<\/p>\n
What started dreadfully for the Twins became more palatable after they rallied from 11 runs down. Minnesota brought the potential tying run to the on-deck circle before Royals closer Lucas Erceg shut down a last gasp in the ninth.<\/p>\n
The overall effort did not seem to impress Ryan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just a little off the page. I don\u2019t think we really showed up to play baseball today from the get-go,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
The conditions were foul, including fog, rain, wind and mud, but both sides had to contend with them. It just made it harder on the Twins once they fell behind.<\/p>\n
A general view as fog rolls in during the game between the Minnesota Twins and the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium on April 01, 2026 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Ryan pitched a scoreless first inning but began to falter with two outs in the bottom of the second. Maple Grove, Minn. native Isaac Collins, the Kansas City No. 8 hitter, broke a scoreless tie with an RBI double to right. Kyle Isbel, who hit a two-run homer Monday in the series opener, followed with an RBI single through the left side to make it 2-0. Garcia added another run with a broken-bat RBI single to left.<\/p>\n
Left-hander Noah Cameron and Kansas City\u2019s bullpen limited the Twins to four hits in the first six innings. The Twins turned a boring blowout into something else by prompting the Royals to use Erceg with one out in the ninth as rain pelted the players and the grounds crew dried the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty much all mud though,\u201d Twins manager Derek Shelton said. \u201cNot much you could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raindrops started falling in the bottom of the third amid fog, and the weather appeared to help the Royals build their lead.<\/p>\n
With two outs and Vinnie Pasquantino at second base, Jonathan India hit a pop-up single near the third-base bag that Royce Lewis appeared to have trouble tracking from start to finish. Pasquantino scored, and India was thrown out trying to reach second. The Royals made it 5-0 in the fourth on Garcia\u2019s sacrifice fly after the bottom of the order loaded the bases with no outs.<\/p>\n
Ryan\u2019s four-seam fastball velocity dropped nearly 2 mph after the first inning.<\/p>\n
Cameron allowed a run, four hits and a walk, along with five strikeouts over five innings in his first start of the season.<\/p>\n
Brooks Lee got the Twins on the board with an RBI single in the fifth, pushing across Lewis after he doubled.<\/p>\n
The Royals piled on with a seven-run sixth against right-handers Cody Laweryson and Zak Kent, with India connecting for a grand slam.<\/p>\n
![\"Minnesota](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/STP-Z-Twins-Royals-Baseball_261211800.jpg\")
Minnesota Twins manager Derek Shelton walks to the mound to make a pitching change during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo\/Charlie Riedel)<\/p>\n
The Twins scored three runs in the seventh \u2014 including a two-run double by Luke Keaschall \u2014 added two more in the eighth, and three in the ninth on Josh Bell\u2019s three-run homer against Bailey Falter.<\/p>\n
Shelton was happy the Twins lineup gave the team something to hang hope on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m going to take away from it,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cBecause, I mean, there were some ugly parts of that game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erceg retired Austin Martin and James Outman for the unlikely save.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no silver linings in baseball,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cYou win or you lose, but the fact that Erceg had to come in that game that beneficial for us [Thursday], playing a day game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matt Wallner made a failed ABS challenge on a strikeout in the first, but the Twins were successful with eight subsequent challenges against plate umpire Andy Fletcher.<\/p>\n
Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers was sharp behind the plate with the challenges, even when the score seemed out of hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop doing that just because of the score,\u201d Jeffers said. \u201cYou could see how at-bats changed, the course of the game changed, after some of those were successful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 Twins right-hander Joe Ryan did not really know what to make of his atypical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,2596,2595,60,4,252,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-658499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansascity","13":"tag-kansascityroyals","14":"tag-minnesota-twins","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-royals","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116334576080948358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}