Joe Ryan outduels George Kirby as Twins hand Mariners shutout loss

MINNEAPOLIS – Welp, so much for that surging offense.

Minnesota’s Joe Ryan shut down the Seattle Mariners’ lineup and over six dominant innings, outdueling George Kirby and snapping the Twins’ five-game losing skid in a 2-0 victory Wednesday night.

Ryan allowed just three hits, all singles, walked none and struck out eight.

The Mariners didn’t have a hit after the fourth inning. They advanced just two runners past first base all night – none beyond second base and none after the second inning.

“That’s when you’ve got to tip your cap,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “Sometimes they are able to execute … and tonight was just one of those nights.”

The Mariners (41-38) were shut out for the fifth time this season. They had scored 47 runs in their first five games of this 10-game road trip.

Ryan became just the second pitcher to strike out Cal Raleigh three times this season – two were looking, and the first backward K came a pitch that appeared well out of the zone. (San Diego’s Michael King was the other pitcher to do that, on May 18.)

Twins relievers Louis Varland, Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran completed the shutout. Mariners batters struck out 11 times with one walk.

“You’ve got to give credit to Ryan,” Wilson said. “I thought he moved the ball around well, used his secondaries a lot and when he had his fastball, he located it pretty well. He made it tough for us. Didn’t make many mistakes on the plate.”

Willi Castro spoiled Kirby’s gem with a two-out single to drive in the game’s first run in the sixth, driving in Byron Buxton from second.

Buxton reached on a one-out single up the middle, just the Twins’ second hit off Kirby.

The Mariners’ right-hander threw four straight sliders to Buxton, trying to get a swing-and-miss off the plate, but the last slider caught enough of the zone that Buxton hit it sharply up the middle.

Kirby was one strike away from matching Ryan’s six scoreless innings during a long at-bat against Castro, who has tormented Mariners pitching in their two series matchups this season.

Castro won the eight-pitch at-bat against Kirby, turning on a 96.3-mph sinker on the inside corner for a 107.2-mph single to right field. Buxton scored easily from second.

“I didn’t throw a sinker inside all game (to Castro), and Cal and I both thought it was a good move there,” Kirby said. “But he put a good swing on it.”

Kirby was encouraged after allowing only one run, a season low. He was perfect through three innings and didn’t allow a hit until there were two outs in the fourth.

His final line: six innings, three hits, one run, one walk, three strikeouts.

“I felt great,” he said. “We had the four-seam up top and it was working really well, and I used my slider and curveball really effectively tonight and kept them off balance. … I thought I was super efficient.”

He turned to his slider more than any other pitch, throwing it 33 times (of his 90 pitches). He threw his four-seam fastball 24 times and his sinker 21 times.

“Every team knows that I’m going to come at you with heaters – and I’m still going to do that,” Kirby said. “But tonight the slider worked really well. We had to keep them off-balance. I could really spot up a two-seam in, but if guys are really cheating to it. It really doesn’t do me much good if I’m just ripping heaters all night, so I need to keep ’em off-balance and use that slider.”

The Twins (38-42) had lost 11 of 12 coming into Wednesday.

The M’s will turn to Emerson Hancock for Thursday’s series finale.