Joe Ryan's first Twins start: Plenty to like — and one big thing to work on

New Twins pitcher Joe Ryan has a lot of charisma and seems like fun. My wife thinks he looks a bit like "Weird" Al Yankovic, at least upon a quick glance.

He has the ingredients to be a popular player for a long time. But only if he develops, of course, into a good pitcher.

As such, his MLB debut for the Twins on Wednesday was instructive. There was a lot to like in his five innings of work: 89 pitches, 60 for strikes, four out of five innings that were 1-2-3.

But there was also one big thing that he (and whomever is catching him) will need to be cognizant of, and I think it caught up with Ryan in the third inning when he allowed his only walk and only three hits — and, most importantly, the only three runs of the whole game.

The good and the bad, in fact, sort of go hand in hand — which I talked about on Thursday's Daily Delivery podcast.

Ryan filled the strike zone (67.4% of his pitches were strikes), which seems to square with his pretty stingy 2.3 walks/9 innings rate in his minor league career. He does it often with a four-seam fastball that isn't necessarily overpowering but is deceptive.

"The fastball looked like guys couldn't see it," Cubs manager David Ross said. "It looks like it's 96 [miles per hour] and it's coming out 91-92. He's got one of those fastballs that hitters don't see."

That will bode well for Ryan at any level, and it's good news for the Twins that at least in his first start it appeared to be the case in the majors.

But Ryan also started to lean on that fastball too much, which got him into trouble in the third inning. First, he lost command of it with a leadoff walk. With one out, he threw five straight fastballs to Andrew Romine. Three of the first four were balls, and the fifth was smacked for a loud double.

He nearly wriggled free after a short fly ball was caught by Byron Buxton, but then Frank Schwindel, on a 1-1 pitch, seemed to be sitting on a fastball and smoked it into the left field seats. The location of the pitch was good — in one the hands — but the predictability was bad and Schwindel tagged it.

After another loud hit in a five-pitch at bat — all fastballs — pitching coach Wes Johnson came out for a mound visit.

At that point, Ryan had thrown 50 pitches, and 43 of them were fastballs. And his velocity was starting to dip: In the first inning, pumped full of adrenaline and while fresh, Ryan topped 93 mph on five of his seven fastballs. By the third inning, he was sitting at more like 90-91.

I'm not sure exactly what Johnson said, but I know what happened the rest of the way: Ryan recorded seven consecutive outs with a much different pitch mix: Just 19 of the final 39 pitches he threw were fastballs, while he worked in more breaking balls (a slider and slow curve) and a decent-looking changeup.

What Ryan learned rather quickly is that major league hitters, particularly the second time through the order, will make adjustments. If they see you're filling the zone with primarily fastballs, they will sit on that pitch and mash it.

Next time out, I'd love to see a better mix from Ryan early on. If he can keep hitters off-balance just enough, the good fastball will become even better — and hopefully for the Twins' sake allow him to avoid a big inning that spoils an otherwise impressive night.