Minnesota Twins lose to Houston Astros when Jhoan Duran gives up walk-off run

HOUSTON – Joe Ryan halted the run of troublesome starts by the Twins’ veteran starting pitchers on Saturday.

Didn’t matter. Twins still lost.

Ryan gave up only two hits over seven innings, but the Twins had no better luck against Astros starter Hunter Brown, and the score remained tied into the ninth. That’s when Houston’s Cam Smith hit a three-bouncer up the middle, scoring Christian Walker from third base, and the Astros clinched the season series against the Twins for the first time since 2022 by walking off with a 3-2 victory at Daikin Park.

“Soft grounder in a bad spot,” Twins closer Jhoan Duran said, shaking his head after giving up a run for only the seventh time in 33 appearances this season. “Baseball luck.”

Duran walked Walker to start the inning, then gave up back-to-back two-out singles to Jake Meyers and Smith to extend the Twins’ losing streak to three games.

It was a disappointing ending to a terrific pitcher’s duel between Ryan and Brown. Ryan made only one mistake in seven brilliant innings — heck, he didn’t surrender a hit in six of them, retiring 12 consecutive batters at one point — and posted his seventh quality start of the season.

“Joe pitched great. Joe kept us in the game,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “That’s a team that can attack four-seamers pretty good, so he had to mix his pitches well and he did that.”

And he proved to himself he could do it in this domed stadium.

“I haven’t really pitched that great here or against this team in general, so I was just trying to take it one pitch at a time, kind of slow things down. Just focus on execution,” Ryan said after giving up fewer than five runs in Houston for the first time. “We had some really good [defensive] plays at some important times. That helped me.”

One problem: With a runner on first base and two outs in the third inning, Ryan didn’t get a high fastball high enough, and Astros catcher Yanier Diaz sliced it the opposite way. It carried only 339 feet, but landed just beyond the fence and just inside the right-field foul pole, giving Houston a 2-0 lead.

“Yeah, I missed my spot there. I just got to go up more. That’s on me,” Ryan said. Alluding to the 23-foot-high right field wall at Target Field, Ryan pointed out that “if we’re at home, it’s a different story.”

Still, the Twins had won six consecutive games started by Ryan, and he pitched well enough to make it seven. Except that Brown matched Ryan’s effort, giving up just three hits over seven innings. And his outing included an identical mistake.

After Carlos Correa led off the fifth inning with a single up the middle, Brown started Brooks Lee with a high cutter. Lee was ready for it, and hit a high fly ball that carried into the Crawford boxes in left field, carrying just 345 feet.

It was Lee’s second career home run off Brown — he hit his first career homer last July against the Astros righthander.

“Brooks put a good swing on the ball and gets us right back into it,” Baldelli said. “We had a couple other opportunities with guys on. We just needed to come through.”

BOXSCORE: Houston 3, Twins 2

MLB standings

Not so easy against Brown, who had held the Twins to two runs on five hits over six innings in beating Ryan and the Twins on Opening Day at Target Field.

This time, Brown struck out a career-high 12 Twins in seven innings, the most by a starting pitcher facing the Twins in more than a year.

“He’s pitched as well as anybody in baseball this year. You can see why,” Baldelli said. “He’s got excellent stuff, excellent execution with his two fastballs and then when he has to go to his off-speed stuff, he can kind of intertwine all of that pretty well.”