Twins top Padres to win series behind strong games from Joe Ryan, Byron Buxton

Phil Miller, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Aug 31, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — There isn’t much left to be decided for the Minnesota Twins this season, but this might be one thing: Who is the Twins’ MVP of 2025?

Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan were the Twins’ representatives at the All-Star Game in July, and they are the team’s runaway leaders in Wins Above Replacement through five months. By Baseball Reference’s calculations, they came into Sunday tied at 4.3 WAR.

One thing that’s for certain, though: When both are at their best, it’s hard to beat the Twins.

Buxton, who homered and doubled in four at-bats, and Ryan, who pitched seven scoreless innings and struck out eight, proved it again on Sunday, leading the Twins to a 7-2 triumph over the San Diego Padres at Target Field and winning the series against a team almost certainly headed for the postseason.

Buxton had the three hardest-hit balls of the game, including a 108-mph smash that was speared by shortstop Jose Iglesias, and followed that up two innings later by blasting a pitch from left-hander Kyle Hart off the upper-deck facing in left field. The two-run homer was Buxton’s 29th home run of the season, setting a career high, and his 84th at Target Field, tying him with Max Kepler for the most home runs in the 16-year-old ballpark’s history.

Then Buxton cracked Wandy Peralta’s first pitch 111 mph into deep right-center field, a double that sparked a three-run fifth inning.

Ryan didn’t come close to allowing a ball to be hit that hard. The right-hander, who gave up an uncharacteristic 11 runs in his past two starts, only recorded two 1-2-3 innings, but he was a master of working out of trouble, leaving Padres stranded on third base three times.

His seventh and final inning was perhaps the most impressive; after giving up a leadoff double to Jake Cronenworth, who moved to third on Iglesias’ groundout, Ryan struck out Freddy Fermin and, on the eighth pitch of a battle between All-Stars, Fernando Tatis Jr.

Ryan walked off the field to a standing ovation from a large number of the announced 26,956 in attendance after recording his fifth scoreless start of the season but first in two months. It was his 13th victory of the season, tying a career high set in 2022.

Michael Tonkin pitched the final two innings, coming within one out of preserving the shutout before giving up a pair of ninth inning runs. Fermin doubled home Mason McCoy, and Bryce Johnson singled Fermin home.

The loss, San Diego’s fourth on their six-game road trip, kept the Twins’ record of success intact: They have never lost a series to the Padres at Target Field, and this one was particularly damaging to the visitors, who entered the day one game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West title chase.

Royce Lewis also played a starring role in the Twins’ first series victory since the Royals visited on Aug. 8-10. Lewis singled twice, each time with a runner in scoring position and two outs, to widen the Twins’ lead. His two RBI gave him 18 in August, the most by any Twins player. Luke Keaschall collected his 17th RBI of the month, too, driving in Buxton with a fifth-inning single.

The Twins open a four-game series against the last-place White Sox with a 2:10 p.m. ET Labor Day matinée on Monday.

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