Minneapolis – When Willy Adames came up for the second at-bat of the game and crushed an 88.5 MPH slider to the left field foul pole, no one at Target Field expected what would come of the rest of the night for the San Francisco Giants’ lineup.
A crew chief review overturned Adames’ home run to a foul ball because it just missed landing fair in front of it. After that, Chris Paddack turned into an efficient pitching machine, getting out after out for the Twins.
“I feel like sometimes when I’m on the rubber, I get bad luck,” said Paddack postgame. “Tonight was not the case. I felt like I got some good luck on my side.”
To Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers, who caught Paddack on Friday, it wasn’t a matter of luck.
“[It was] just a long strike,” he said.
For a while, everything seemed like it would be perfect for Paddack the rest of the night. He had 43 pitches through five innings, and 34 landed for strikes. By that point, the Twins dugout was aware of what was to come, but they weren’t getting overwhelmed by Paddack’s chance at history.
“They asked me that question on Apple TV. I made a joke, I feel like we know that after the first inning,” said Paddack. “You’re lying if you say you’re not. After the third, fourth inning, it becomes real.”
“You’re aware of it after probably four or five innings,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli on Paddack’s flirtation with history.
“Somewhere in that range where it starts to become a relevant and somewhat exciting prospect, but I think most people should focus on a guy that’s pitching that well and holding onto that as long as possible. I’m thinking about that, but I’m basically just thinking about how are we going to win the game? And that’s the way it should be.”
Jeffers admitted to thinking about the big picture.
“You start to kind of get to that,” said Jeffers. “I think that’s starting to get to the point where you’re thinking about it a little bit. I mean, you think about it, but that’s when you start to get that little bit nervous jitters there. Just a little bit.”
History was there for Paddack to conquer, until the baseball gods allowed a base hit from the Giants’ second baseman, Christian Koss. That ended his perfect game attempt after 5 ⅔ innings of perfect baseball.
Paddack was still in a good spot after six scoreless innings. Only one hit on 58 pitches set him in a great position to give Minnesota’s bullpen a night off while leading 3-0 thanks to another stellar night at the plate from Byron Buxton and some RBI singles from Trevor Larnach and Carlos Correa.
However, in the seventh inning, the shutout evaporated. Paddack gave up a two-out solo home run to Matt Chapman to make it a three-run game. His first career perfect game and no-hitter were no longer in play, and so was the shutout. Still, there was one career first on the table for him with 72 pitches through seven innings: a Maddux complete game, or any complete game with fewer than 100 pitches thrown.
Bailey Ober was the last Twins pitcher to do it. Last summer in Oakland against the A’s, he threw a complete game on just 89 pitches in a 10-2 Twins victory. But the Maddux, too, would have to wait. Paddack allowed a lead-off single to Heliot Ramos in the eighth and got the next batter out, but Louis Varland pitched the last two.
Still, everything came together for Paddack. His fastball velocity averaged 95 MPH, the highest in a game all season. The extra velo on Paddack’s fastball, which topped out at 96.6 MPH, gave him an additional boost to record five of his six strikeouts the first time through the Giants’ lineup and put them away by throwing fastballs 60% of the time.
“You can get away with a lot more,” said Jeffers. “You can throw more fastballs when his fastball is 95-96. I think every pitcher can benefit from more velo. Hicks is throwing 99-100, and that’s why he’s starting. If he was throwing 92-93, he probably wouldn’t be starting now. When you can add velo as a starter, it’s really beneficial.”
“I don’t think 60% fastballs was the game plan,” said Paddack. “It was just attack. And then obviously getting some quick outs there in the first couple innings, us scoring early, I wanted to stay on the attack because you look at Hicks, he was also doing the same thing. It was a fun little game there, a fun little battle.”
The 7.1 innings of one-run baseball brought Paddack’s ERA down from 5.57 to 4.76. The bad start to open the season in Chicago is behind him. Paddack has put up a 2.97 ERA* in 36 ⅓ innings since then.
The dominant start earned Paddack the player of the game on Apple TV’s broadcast and his first postgame ice bath on TV. Paddack had his guard up, waiting for the moment, but Pablo Lopez and Simeon Woods Richardson still caught him off guard.
“I was giving the guys a hard time,” said Paddack. “I’ve pictured that, ‘Man, if I ever get player of the game,’ to watch my back. But Apple TV, I kind of got locked in, blacked out, and I hear, sure enough, ice bath over the top. Just got dry. It’s a little chilly, but it’s an honor and humbling to be player of the game.”
*An earlier version of this post had the incorrect ERA. We regret the error.
