KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Three games into the season, and the Twins are already getting the full Joey Gallo Experience.
The game's most drastic all-or-nothing hitter opened the season 0-for-6 with four strikeouts in the season's first two games, though he played strong defense at first base. On Sunday, though, Herculean Joey made his first appearance, crashing a double off the right-field wall and two home runs far, far over it, powering the Twins to a 7-4 victory over the Royals, and a sweep of their season-opening series at Kauffman Stadium.
If Gallo's good days and bad are an unpredictable ruckus, Joe Ryan's success against the Royals is about as surefire as baseball gets. The Twins' young righthander allowed only one run and three hits over six innings this time — and it rates among his worst starts against his Kansas City lapdogs.
After all, last time Ryan faced the Royals, he didn't allow a hit over seven innings. This time, Ryan became the first Twins pitcher to allow a run this season after consecutive shutouts to open the season, his second-inning fastball to Edward Oliveras landing just in front of the waterfall in left field.
But Ryan didn't give up another run, holding the Royals to 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and continuing his remarkable dominance over the Central Division rivals.
In five career starts against Kansas City, Ryan is now 5-0 with a 1.20 ERA against the Royals, having allowed four runs in 30 innings, with 32 strikeouts. He even threw in a 96.0-mph fastball against Bobby Witt, Jr., in the first inning, the fastest pitch Ryan has thrown in his career.
The Twins' bullpen wasn't quite as airtight as in the first two games, with Jovani Moran allowing a two-run homer to Royals third baseman Matt Duffy, and Emilio Pagán giving up a double to Michael Massey and a run-scoring single to Olivares in the ninth.
But by that time, Ryan Jeffers, Trevor Larnach and especially Gallo had put the game out of reach.
The left-handed slugger grounded out in the second inning, but Jeffers followed his at-bat with a run-scoring single, giving the Twins the early lead (they haven't trailed yet this year). Jeffers drove in Gallo two innings later, following Gallo's first hit of the year, a double to deep right.
Then came the fireworks — a solo home run in the sixth inning off lefty Amir Garrett that traveled 415 feet, and a mammoth blast in the seventh that landed 431 feet away and brought home three more runs.
