Chris Paddack makes the most of two-inning start for the Twins

PORT CHARLOTTE, FLA. — Chris Paddack pitched the entire game and gave up only one run on Monday, and Royce Lewis, with the Twins down to their final two outs, blasted a dramatic game-tying home run, allowing the Twins to salvage a 1-1 deadlock with the Rays at Charlotte Sports Park.

Oh yeah, there’s an asterisk: Heavy rain caused the game to be called off after just two innings.

Still, the day was an unquestioned success for Paddack, who didn’t pitch after the All-Star break last season due to a forearm strain in his right arm. In his first action against opposing hitters since July 14, he hit 95.4 mph with his fastball on Monday, retired six of the eight hitters he faced, and “emptied the tank,” as he said, in order to demonstrate how healthy he feels this season.

“I felt awesome. I worked on a lot of really good things,” Paddack said. “I was attacking hitters, trying to establish that fastball. I thought we did a really good job.”

He did serve up a 93.9-mph fastball that Rays catcher Danny Jansen lofted onto the boardwalk in left field, and a 94.1-mph pitch that Brandon Lowe lined into left field, both hits coming in the first inning. By the time he got out of the first inning, his pitch count was nearing 25, and the Twins had a minor league pitcher warming up just in case.

But after Lowe’s single, Paddack retired the next five hitters in order, with a pair of strikeouts among them.

After an impressive bullpen session last week in which he hit 97 mph, Paddack was scheduled for another such outing on Monday. But he asked to pitch in the game instead because “it just felt good to be in uniform and see a different color uniform on the other side, and just compete.”

He particularly relished the battle with Rays outfielder Tre’ Morgan in the second inning, “just a fun competition, one vs. one,” he said. “That’s why I chose this over [a bullpen session] — I’ve got a guy that’s fouling off my heaters. We’re smiling back and fourth. You could feel the tension, ‘I’m going to beat you, you’re going to beat me’ type deal. And I was able to get him.”

The strikeout, Paddack said, “fighting guys, winning with my heater, climbing the ladder and having guys swing and miss after a couple of foul balls — that means that my stuff is playing and I located it very well.”

The Twins lineup included Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Christian Vázquez, veterans who rarely are asked to leave Fort Myers during the spring. But Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, as part of his intention to make his players feel more team spirit, said he wants each of his players to take bus rides to road games over the next four weeks.

“It’s good to get our guys out there and playing together, not only early in the spring, but not taking two or three days off in between their first games,” Baldelli said. “That’s something that we have identified and want to work toward when it comes to making the schedule.”

Not all road trips in Florida are created equal — Port Charlotte is only about 40 minutes from Hammond Stadium, while Wednesday’s visit to Lakeland to play the Tigers will require a bus ride of about three hours.

Still, Correa never played outside Fort Myers (either home games or visits to the Red Sox’s JetBlue Park, about seven miles away) last year, and had done so only twice in his three-year Twins career. Buxton has left the city only three times in three seasons.