CLEVELAND — Bailey Ober spent the month of June pitching through a hip injury and enduring the worst results of his career. He spent the month of July getting healthy and working on fixing his mechanics.
Saturday, Ober was activated from the injured list for his first start since June 28 and had mixed results in the Twins’ 5-4 loss to the Cleveland Guardians in the second game of the series at Progressive Field.
Ober was one out away from getting through his fifth inning of work having given up just two runs. Guardians star José Ramírez had other ideas. Ramírez took a slider out to right, tying the game up and giving Ober’s start a different feel.
Nothing particularly came easy for Ober, who pitched around a double and a walk in the first inning, allowed a run in the second after two singles to begin the inning and surrendered a leadoff home run to Daniel Schneemann in the third. After his only clean inning of the day, Ober finished off his outing by striking out three in the fifth — while also giving up the game-tying blast.
It marked the fifth straight game in which Ober had given up at least four runs after not doing so at all in the months of April or May.
The Twins, who scored two runs in the fourth on Matt Wallner’s home run and another pair an inning later, gave up a run in the eighth inning to drop yet another close game in Cleveland.
Joe Ryan’s wild day
With 28 minutes remaining before Thursday’s trade deadline, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi sent off a post on X about all-star starter Joe Ryan.
“The Red Sox have made a late effort to acquire Joe Ryan, source says,” he wrote.
Somehow, some way, both FOX Sports and Yahoo Sports misinterpreted the post and in the minutes that followed, both sent off posts of their own citing Morosi that said that the Twins had dealt Ryan to the Red Sox. Sure enough, Ryan saw one of them and, after weeks of his name being included in trade rumors, and in the midst of the Twins purging the roster, believed he had been traded.
“I thought I got traded for several minutes and then was like, ‘Is this going to happen? What’s the deal?’” Ryan said. “That was a weird mix of emotions.”
Ryan was sitting with some other teammates in a room at the team’s downtown Cleveland hotel. Griffin Jax, whom Ryan said did not think he was going to get traded, was with him, as was Louie Varland. Just minutes before the deadline, Jax and Varland got news that they were headed elsewhere.
Ryan never got a call, remaining with the Twins past the deadline. A trade with the Red Sox, a source later said, was not close. But in the moment, Ryan truly had no idea what was going on.
“It was weird. It was a lot. It felt like I was throwing an intense situation in a game,” Ryan said. “We were sitting in there and it felt like a (expletive) horserace.”
Briefly
Simeon Woods Richardson will not make his start as scheduled on Sunday, manager Rocco Baldelli announced. Instead, recently called up José Ureña will start the series finale against the Guardians. … First-round draft pick Marek Houston made his professional debut on Friday going 1 for 4 with an RBI for Single-A Fort Myers.
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