Twins lose to Astros when Jhoan Duran gives up walk-off run

Phil Miller, Star Tribune on Jun 14, 2025

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

HOUSTON — Joe Ryan halted the run of troublesome starts by the Twins’ veteran starting pitchers on Saturday.

Didn’t matter. Twins still lost.

Cam Smith hit a ground-ball single up the middle in the bottom of the ninth off Jhoan Duran, scoring Christian Walker from third base, and the Astros clinched the season series against the Twins for the first time since 2022 by walking off with a 3-2 victory at Daikin Park.

Duran walked Walker to start the inning, then gave up back-to-back two-out singles to Jake Myers and Smith to extend the Twins’ losing streak to three games.

Ryan made only one mistake in seven brilliant innings, six of them hitless, but since Hunter Brown was dominating the Twins lineup, it was enough to end the Twins’ streak of six consecutive victories when Ryan starts.

With a runner on first base and two outs in the third inning, Ryan didn’t get a high fastball high enough, and Astros catcher Yanier Diaz sliced it the opposite way. It carried just beyond the fence and just inside the right-field foul pole, giving Houston a 2-0 lead.

Two innings later, Brown made a similar mistake. After Carlos Correa led off with a single up the middle, Brown started Brooks Lee with a high cutter. Lee was ready for it, and hit a high fly ball that carried into the Crawford boxes in left field. It was Lee’s second career home run off Brown — he hit his first career homer last July against the Astros star right-hander.

Brown struck out 12 Twins in seven innings, the most by a starting pitcher against them in more than a year.

Ryan also pitched seven innings, and other than the third-inning single and home run, he did not give up another hit, or let Astros batter reach third base.