Joe Ryan dishes up five home runs as San Diego routs Twins 10-1

SAN DIEGO – If there was a fire alarm, Dylan Bundy would have pulled it. If there were signal flares, Chris Archer would have ignited one. And on Friday, Joe Ryan all but scrawled SOS on his cap and dialed 911.

The Twins starting rotation seems to be frantically summoning emergency help this week, with the opportunity to trade for more pitching closing in only three days. After Bundy and Archer gave up five and six runs, respectively, in just four and three innings at Milwaukee, Ryan, the most successful starting pitcher on the Twins staff in 2022, inexplicably melted down at Petco Park.

The rookie righthander, who had never given up more than two home runs in an MLB game, served up a franchise-record five of them to the Padres and gave up all 10 runs in the Twins' third consecutive loss, 10-1 to San Diego. It's difficult to imagine a more definitive statement about the need to acquire more talent — and get better performances from what they have already.

"We've all got to take a serious look in the mirror and say, 'How can we be better?' " Archer said after watching his teammate endure the worst outing of his young career. "We haven't been playing our best baseball for a while now. … Tonight was kind of an awakening. If you didn't know, now you know."

The Twins starting rotation now owns a collective 6.80 ERA in July, and that's not ever the most dire number the team faces. The Twins' fragile hold on their AL Central lead dwindled to only one game over the Guardians, who have won three of four.

"The level of play is not where it needs to be in any way right now. Acknowledging that is the first step," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "We have time to make it work and to get together and play the kind of baseball we need to. We have time, but we don't have that much time. I mean, it has to start today."

An announced sellout crowd of 43,171, the largest crowd to witness a Twins game since 2019, enjoyed watching the Friday night fireworks provided, practically once an inning, by Padres pouncing on mislocated fastballs from Ryan. Making them even more painful, four of the homers came with two outs.

Luke Voit got it started with a first-inning blast, a two-run shot. Ha-Seong Kim connected in the second inning, Eric Hosmer blasted one to center field in the fourth, and after Manny Machado drilled a homer in the fifth, Jorge Alfaro's three-run shot finally knocked Ryan out.

"Definitely missing my spots. They just executed their plan there, hit the ball hard. Pretty frustrating," said Ryan, whose ERA started the day at a team-best 2.89 but ballooned to 3.78 in only 4⅔ innings. "I've got to be better than that, though, and execute and get through it. Not let them keep rolling like that."

Only Carlos Silva in 2006 and Bert Blyleven in 1986 had ever surrendered five homers in one game, and no Twins pitcher since Rick Reed in 2003 had been charged with 10 runs.

"They were obviously taking some good swings. He had some opportunities to get through some innings with two outs, and obviously wasn't able to get through it," Baldelli said of Ryan, who allowed the final five hitters he faced to reach base — and score. "We're not playing good baseball right now. We're not pitching real good, and it's hard to get back into some of these games."

The lone bright spot for the Twins was provided by Byron Buxton, who hammered a first-pitch fastball from Blake Snell into the left-field seats in the fourth inning, becoming the fifth Twins player ever to hit 25 home runs in a season's first 100 games. But Snell only gave up three other hits in his six-inning stint, striking out seven, and the Padres bullpen retired nine of 10 Twins to close out the final three innings.

"These players are resilient. These guys are resilient. They can adjust. They can figure things out. They can handle pressure," Baldelli said. "We have some work to do. A lot of work."