Twins sweep Royals as Joey Gallo crushes two homers, Joe Ryan crushes Royals hopes on mound

KANSAS CITY, MO. – The Twins' Far-Above-Average Joes finished off a season-opening sweep.

Joe Ryan gave up only one run over six innings to reinforce his domination of the AL Central rivals, Joey Gallo crashed a double off the right-field wall and two home runs far, far over it, and the pair combined to deliver a 7-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium.

About the only disappointment for the Twins this weekend came when Ryan's second-inning fastball to Edward Olivares landed in the waterfall beyond the left field wall, ending their team-record 19-inning shutout streak to open a season.

Unless … Ryan was intending to spoil that string of zeroes all along?

"I told [Monday's starter Tyler] Mahle that right after [Olivares] hit it — 'Hey, you're welcome. I took the pressure off. You can just relax and go pitch now,'" Ryan joked. "You don't want to give up runs, but hey man, it was bound to happen at some point. So I'll wear that one for the team."

Generous of him. Ryan wasn't so kind to the Royals, whom the 26-year-old righthander has absolutely subjugated since joining the Twins staff. Even with an uncooperative slider on this day, he said, he managed to hold Kansas City to three hits and 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position, yet another masterful performance against the Royals.

In five career starts against Kansas City, Ryan is 5-0 with a 1.20 ERA, having given up four runs in 30 innings with 32 strikeouts. He even threw in a fastball against Bobby Witt Jr. in the first inning that was clocked at 96.0 miles per hour, by MLB's StatCast system's judgment the fastest pitch Ryan has thrown in his career.

But Ryan's superlative isn't the one Twins fans will remember about Sunday's game. 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 went 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 of the year.

"These are the things that Joey Gallo can do. He can get hot and drive the ball like very few people in the world," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of the two-time All-Star. "When he starts to feel it, when he starts to settle in, when he starts to get comfortable, it's a scary thing sometimes."

Nobody was frightened by his second-inning groundout, which Ryan Jeffers followed with a run-scoring single to give the Twins, who have yet to trail this season, an early lead. Then, however, the fireworks started.

Gallo drove a Brad Keller pitch off the right-field wall for his first hit of the season in the fourth inning, and he came around to score on Jeffers' second single for a 2-1 Twins lead. And he validated Baldelli's vote of confidence two innings later, when the manager chose not to pinch hit for Gallo, as he had Thursday, against lefthander Amir Garrett.

"They bring somebody in for me, that's great, man. I'll be in the dugout cheering those guys on. I'm not going to be bitter if they take me out," Gallo said. "But I've usually had pretty good numbers against lefties."

His number on Sunday was 431, as in feet traveled by a Garrett slider, a solo shot that landed on a walkway behind the Royals bullpen.

An inning later, Gallo launched a first-pitch fastball from Dylan Coleman to the patio of the Blue Moon Bar in right field, a 415-foot blast that brought home three runs and put the game out of reach.

"It's great on a new team to show that you can help, to show the team they signed a good player," said Gallo, who signed a one-year deal with the Twins in January. "Early on, you want to have a good impression on your new team and your new fans and new everything."

Said Baldelli: "He's going to sleep good tonight. He's looked good. He's had some good swings. … If he's seeing the ball good, it can get fun for us. We got a little taste of it today."