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The Twins went into Baltimore last week and were thoroughly outclassed by the Orioles, with their collection of tremendous young talent.
They were outscored 22-9 in the three-game sweep, with the worst beating suffered in the middle game by Chris Paddack, the pitcher attempting to re-establish himself after a second Tommy John surgery.
The Twins saw him pitch a few innings last fall in the postseason and were impressed. They allowed the tremendously valuable Sonny Gray to walk (to the St. Louis Cardinals for three years and $75 million) and talked up the potential of Paddack to fill a veteran's spot in the rotation.
Paddack was clobbered for 12 hits and nine runs in 5⅓ innings by the O's. The one positive heard was that he was willing to go back out there for a few more pitches in the sixth to help out a bullpen that was about to be overused.
On Monday night, Paddack had his fourth start of the season, and first following the Baltimore rout. The opponents were the Chicago White Sox (3-19), establishing themselves very early as a team with a chance to charge past the franchise's all-time record for losses:
One-hundred six, divided among three managers — Don Gutteridge (87), Bill Adair (six) and the always happy Chuck Tanner (13) — in 1970.
The White Sox arrived at Target Field with seven shutouts already inflicted upon them — one per series. So it's probably a good idea not to get overly excited over the bounce-back offered by Paddack in this series opener, but consider the ridicule that would have been aimed at the Twins and the pitcher if he had been knocked around by the South Siders.
Rather than that, Paddack went seven innings, struck out 10 and allowed six hits — with zero walks — a 7-0 win. Ronny Henriquez, called up from St. Paul on Monday, needed 47 pitches (20 balls) to get through two innings and the White Sox quickly had hit their shutout ratio (one) per series.
When spending years coming back from elbow surgeries, a pitcher has to grasp onto all possible positives, and Sox or not, Paddack was doing that after his first win as a starter since May 2, 2022 — over Baltimore, before it started introducing most of its outstanding talent.
He saw it as a good step for him, but more so, as a sign of a potential revival for the Twins — 7-13 entering Monday, with pathetic displays of hitting as they entered having lost six out of seven.
"This game, we play 162 for a reason," Paddack said. "A couple of injuries that aren't ideal … we lost some big names in our lineup. We're a brotherhood here with the Twins, and tonight was a good jump start as to what's to come."
The Twins entered Monday's game having played 1,000 regular-season games vs. the Sox, with our lads holding a 528-469-3 advantage in the competition.
As the Twins and the Sox were starting their next thousand games, I will make this claim: Never have the rivals brought such mutual futility to home plate.
The Twins started the four-game series carrying a .195 team batting average, compared to .188 for the White Sox.
The Twins also came in with 17 home runs. Royce Lewis was tied for third among Twins home run leaders and he hadn't played since the third inning of the season opener.
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An outbreak of doubles started with Max Kepler, coming back from the injured list with no RBI, when he knocked in two runs in the first. Then Kepler singled and Trevor Larnach and Willi Castro ripped doubles in the three-run third. And Edouard Julien doubled home a run in the fourth and upped his team-leading home run total to five in the seventh.
The first four came with Julien showing an impressive power stroke to left field. This one was pulled to right, his first of that variety in 2024.
This was a Monday promotion called "Bark at the Park," where fans were allowed to bring a dog into Target Field with a special ticket.
Many one-liners were contemplated for what had the potential for a duel of toothless mutts, but it was the White Sox who qualified as victims of the Insult Dog on this night.
Eighth shutout for the Sox. And 0-8 in first games of series.
Woof, woof.
