Byron Buxton hit a pair of tape-measure home runs and Joe Ryan scattered three hits while tossing Minnesota’s first complete game shutout in more than five years as the Twins blanked the Boston Red Sox, 6-0, to earn a split of their four-game series on Thursday afternoon in Minneapolis
Ryan (8-4) snapped a four-game winless drought with his first victory since a 7-1 win over San Francisco on May 24.
It was the first nine-inning complete game by a Twins pitcher in 1,842 days since Jose Berrios did it against the Chicago White Sox on June 7, 2018 and the first shutout in 1,909 days when Berrios blanked the Baltimore Orioles on April 1, 2018
Ryan didn’t walk a batter and allowed just three singles. He threw a season-high 112 pitches, 83 for strikes and didn’t allow a Boston runner to reach second base. He finished with nine strikeouts.
Buxton became the first player in the Statcast Era (since 2015) to hit multiple 460-plus foot home runs in the same game. Before Thursday, four players had multi 450-plus home runs in a game: Austin Riley (2023), Willson Contreras (2019), Charlie Blackmon (2019) and Trevor Story (2018).
Carlos Correa also homered, Michael A. Taylor had a two-run double and Royce Lewis and Ryan Jeffers each had two hits for American League Central-leading Minnesota which moved back to the .500 mark (38-38) with its second straight win.
Correa gave Minnesota a 1-0 lead in the first with his 10th homer of the season, a 418-foot blast in the middle of the second deck in left off opener Justin Garza (0-2). After Alex Kirilloff struck out, Buxton followed with a towering 466-foot drive down the left field line that landed in the middle of the third deck. It was the second longest home run of Buxton’s career and marked the first time since May 4 that Correa and Buxton homered in the same game.
The Twins extended the lead to 4-0 in the second on a two-run double down the left field line by Taylor off Brandon Walter, rated the No. 7 prospect in Boston’s system who was making his major league career
Buxton led off the third with his 13th homer of the season, a 465-foot drive deep into the second deck above the bullpen in left-center.
Lewis made it 6-0 in the fifth with a two-out RBI single, driving in Kyle Farmer who had led off with a walk and advanced to third on back-to-back groundouts by Buxton and Max Kepler.
Boston shortstop David Hamilton had an eighth-inning single for his first major league hit.
