As if getting major league hitters out isn’t pressure enough, now the Twins’ starters have another burden to carry to the mound: Don’t blow the streak.
“Yeah, we try to make it a joke. Make it personal out there and have fun,” Chris Paddack said Friday night after pitching the Twins to their 11th consecutive victory, 5-2 over the Red Sox. “We’re definitely on a tear right now, and we definitely want to keep the ball rolling.”
Paddack was tested right from the start when leadoff batter Jarren Duran, hit a grounder that shortstop Carlos Correa misplayed for an error. Rafael Devers followed with a double, and Paddack was facing the threat of a big inning.
“It’s an incredibly meaningful moment right there, because he really picked up our club. … Paddy just shut them down,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of Paddack, who went strikeout-popup-ground out to keep the game scoreless and build his own confidence. “That could have been an inning where they score a lot of runs. But Paddack just took control.”
And he never gave it up. Paddack pitched six shutout innings, never allowing another Red Sox baserunner to reach second base, and the Twins tied the third-longest winning streak in team history.
“It’s a roller-coaster of events,” Paddack said of the Twins’ 7-13 start and 11-0 streak. “The biggest thing is, we’re enjoying this little run. There’s been a lot of guys who have stepped up since Opening Day, and that’s awesome to be a part of.”
Especially since, unlike the previous 10 wins, this one came against a team that isn’t in last place, and with one of the league’s best starting pitchers thus far on the mound. Tanner Houck had made six previous starts, and only once had he given up a run before the seventh inning.
Until Friday. Willi Castro led off the third inning with a line drive that barely landed on the fair side of the foul line, a double that stretched his own hot streak to a career-high nine straight games with a hit.