Minnesota Twins Get Surprisingly Good News on Joe Ryan
The Minnesota Twins are getting ready for an evening game on Tuesday out in D.C. against the Washington Nationals, after enjoying a rare off-day on Monday.
On the mound today will be 2025 trade deadline acquisition, Taj Bradley, who’s been the team’s best starter through a quarter of the 2026 season. The 25-year-old flamethrower will look to improve on his 2.85 ERA (3.82 FIP), 44 strikeouts and just 15 walks.
Meanwhile, the starter who entered the 2026 season as Minnesota’s ace, Joe Ryan took himself out of the game after just two batters due to elbow soreness.
Initial reports on Ryan’s injury did not make fans feel any better about Joe’s outlook, and the Twins waiting two days to release any updates on the situation didn’t help either.
Minnesota Twins bring good Joe Ryan injury update
But on Tuesday afternoon, we finally got some news on the Minnesota Twins’ 29-year-old ace. And in a rather shocking development, it’s extremely positive. Thankfully, Ryan did not travel with the team to get a second opinion on a devastating elbow injury.
Not only did Joe’s MRI return better results than expected, but according to Dan Hayes (The Athletic) he threw the ball around today and will be back on the mound for a bullpen session on Wednesday, as he ramps back up for a return to the game day bump.
Joe Ryan played catch today, scheduled for a bullpen tomorrow. Got clean MRI on Sunday. #MNTwins
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) May 5, 2026
In his first eight starts of the season, Joe Ryan has mostly lived up to expectations through his eight starts so far this season, posting a 3.72 ERA, 1.063 WHIP and 3.01 FIP to go with 40 strikeouts and just 10 walks on the season.
Given how bad the Minnesota Twins bullpen is, and how depleted their starting rotation would have been without Ryan on the staff, this news is a miracle sent by the baseball gods.
I’m not here to declare a playoff run is incoming… but god only knows what they would have done had today’s update on Ryan been disastrous, which was the expectation.
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