Joe Ryan started strong Sunday afternoon and never let up.

The Twins right-hander cruised the first time through the Los Angeles batting order with five strikeouts, three foul outs and a flyout.

And the day’s tone was set.

Ryan’s bounce back performance came at the end of what could be termed a bounce back week for the Twins that culminated with a 5-0 win over the Angels at Target Field.

“We trusted that we were all around a really good team. But when we were losing as much as we were, it starts to get to the point where it’s hard to still believe in that,” said catcher Ryan Jeffers. “… We’re a really good team, and we can show, and we’ve started to show, that we are that team that everybody thinks we can be.”

Minnesota (12-16) won five of six games on its homestand: sweeping the Angels after taking two of three from the White Sox. The Twins have won three games in a row for the first time since Aug. 15-17, 2024. They start a seven-game road trip Monday in Cleveland.

“It’s one thing to go get ‘em for a day, it’s another thing to go get ‘em for an entire homestand,” said manager Rocco Baldelli. “I was really pleased. We saw a lot today and it started with Joe Ryan.”

Ryan stymied the Angels to the tune of seven shutout innings. He struck out a season-high 11 — his 10th career game with double-digit strikeouts and one off his career best — and allowed just four hits. Los Angeles swung at and missed 26 pitches, a career best for Ryan.

“I always just assume they’re going to swing and miss when I throw (my fastball),” he said. “It’s hard for me to break that down, I guess, but it’s a good sign. I’m hitting my spots probably and we’re calling the right pitches. That’s all I think of it. I don’t know. It’s just a good pitch.”

Coming off his worst start of the season last Sunday in Atlanta where he gave up six runs in five innings, including three home runs, Ryan was on his game from the outset. Pounding the zone, Ryan (2-2) needed just 10 pitches to get through the first inning, struck out the side in the second and fanned two of three hitters in the third.

“We were working on some stuff this week, just mechanically and with the lower half. We got it rolling and it felt good,” Ryan said.

Carlos Correa had a season-high three hits and was 6 for 11 in the series.

Up 1-0 in the sixth, Correa led off with a single and Trevor Larnach reached on an error. Both scored on a double by Ty France. He scored two batters later via a Jeffers double.

An RBI single by Larnach made it 5-0 in the seventh.

Harrison Bader provided the highlight-reel defensive play to rob Taylor Ward of extra bases in the seventh inning. Playing center field and shaded towards right, Bader raced to his right made a Byron Buxton-like diving catch of a 108-mph liner and slid onto the warning track in front of the bullpens.

“That was insane,” Ryan said.

With the team in the midst of playing 13 straight days, Buxton got the day off.

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The Vancouver Whitecaps did not prioritize its MLS match against Minnesota United on Sunday at Allianz Field. It didn’t matter.

The Whitecaps, focusing on its run in the CONCACAF Champions League semifinal against Inter Miami coming Wednesday, brought eight new players into the starting XI.

The Loons’ first-choice team didn’t take advantage and when Whitecaps key players Sebastian Berhalter and Pedro Vita subbed in, they combined for three second-half goals in a 3-1 win.

Vancouver (7-1-2, 23 points) showed its depth to remain in first place in the Western Conference.

Third-place MNUFC (4-2-4, 16 points) snapped its club-record-tying eight-match unbeaten streak. Minnesota has lost for the first time since 1-0 at LAFC on Feb. 22.

Wil Trapp scored in the 80th minute, which snapped United’s 321-minute scoreless streak since he scored in New York on April 6 and the Loons then weathered two scoreless draws.

The Loons provided the better chances in the first half but they weren’t great opportunities had nothing to show for it. They outshot Vancouver 6-0, with two on target. Neither attempt challenged Yohei Takaoka much.

When Eric Ramsay was linked to Welsh club Swansea City in February, the Minnesota United head coach projected it won’t be the last one.

Well, the next connection to a job in the England materialized Sunday with talkSPORT reporting Ramsay has had an interview for the vacant managerial position at Southampton.

When Ramsay was linked to Swansea, it appeared to be primarily tied to online betting services putting out odds for its next coach.

The Southhampton connection reportedly has more legs to it, but talkSPORT said Ramsay was “not expected to get the job.”

Ramsay, 33, has been very successful across his two seasons at Minnesota, taking the Loons to the Western Conference semifinals last season. He joined MNUFC in March 2024 after serving as an assistant coach at Manchester United.

Ramsay responded directly to the Swansea connection while amid preseason camp in California.

“It’s a job I’ve been linked with before, so I just think it’s been the logical conclusion,” Ramsay said Feb. 20. “I started my career there. I’m a Welsh guy. But now taking my first steps as a head coach, I’m sure every time that comes up, it will be one I’m linked with. Maybe say that for other jobs in Wales for sure.

“It’s certainly, at this stage, one that is — there is a bit of smoke without fire there. It’s certainly nothing I’ve had on my radar, nor anything I’ve spoken to anyone about. It’s the nature of being a young head coach in a relatively good start here, so I’m sure it’s the sort of thing that we will see from time to time. At the moment, it’s cliche, but I’m very much focused on what I’m doing here and I’m excited for the season to start.”

MNUFC (4-1-4, 16 points) currently sit in third place in the Western Conference and are riding a club-tying eight-match unbeaten streak going into Sunday’s match against first-place Vancouver Whitecaps.

Southampton have been relegated from the English Premier League and will play in the second-tier Championship in the 2025-26 season.

Like the good adopted Minnesotan that he has become since taking over the Wild coaching reins in November 2023, John Hynes now makes his home on a lake and knows how to sprinkle in a fishing analogy when talking about the ups and downs his team has faced this season.

A few months into the current season, the Wild looked like shoo-ins for the playoffs. But with injuries to key players, the Wild had to scratch and claw to the very end to get that “x” next to their name in the standings, clinched with Joel Eriksson Ek’s goal 21 seconds left in their final regular season game.

Hynes feels those tooth-and-nail battles between October and March can be helpful in April and May.

“Our experience down the stretch probably wasn’t fun going through it; you’d like to be in with seven or eight games left in the season,” he said prior to Game 4 of the current playoff series versus Vegas. “It was right there. It’s like we couldn’t get the fish in the boat fast enough, but we had to stay with it. We couldn’t look ahead. We couldn’t want to get that ‘x’ next to our name without going through the process.”

Roughly 18,000 fans left Xcel Energy Center disappointed early Saturday evening following an entertaining but ultimately losing effort by the Wild, who missed a chance to take a 3-1 series lead in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Vegas Knights. Leading 2-1 after two periods, the Wild gave up a pair of third-period goals and lost for the first time this season when heading into the final period with a lead.

They were the only NHL team with a perfect record (29-0-0) when leading at the start of the third, and had led after two in their two playoff victories over Vegas. Two of the Knights’ goals, including the tying goal early in the third, came on power plays.

Minnesota’s penalty kill, among the NHL’s worst for much of the regular season, has come through at vital moments in this series but still ranks 13th among the 16 playoff teams in negating opponent power plays, allowing four so far. But Hynes still found reason for optimism as his team heads back to Las Vegas with the series tied 2-2.

The tying goal on Saturday came with 8 seconds left in a 4-minute high-sticking minor on defenseman Zeev Buium.

“I think the kill’s in a really good spot,” Hynes said. “… A couple went in, even the (second) one that went in, we had two opportunities to clear it. We just didn’t get some bounces tonight, to be honest, even on the kill in some of those. We got good saves, we had good attention to detail, we killed well.”

To the cynical, that might sound like denial, but it’s also instructive to flash back to September, when there were few who picked Minnesota to make the playoffs. In a preseason scrum with reporters, Wild owner Craig Leipold talked primarily about July 2025, and the team’s freedom from eight figures of dead salary cap space that will allow general manager Bill Guerin to at least have a conversation with some of the top pending free agents.

As recently as a week ago, the numbers-crunching website MoneyPuck.com gave the Wild the smallest percentage chance of a second-round game among the 16 playoff teams. Minnesota hasn’t played in the second round since 2015.

But even after missing out on a chance to take a 3-1 series lead, there was no disappointment in Hynes’ tone Saturday night, and he expressed unshakable confidence in his team and their current circumstances with a road game Tuesday followed by a guaranteed home game.

“You look at the way we played, you could arguably say there were a couple bounces that didn’t go our way,” he said. “But I think when you look at it, the way we play and where we’re at in the series and where we’re going — just stay with it, keep going. We knew it was going to be (tough). The longer the series goes for us, coming into the series we’re like, ‘Keep it going, keep it going, keep it going.’ Here we are. Love it.”

Or, in an analogy most Minnesotans — native or adopted — will understand, even when the walleye aren’t biting right away, there’s no such thing as a bad day fishing.

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