Chris Paddack started the Minnesota Twins’ winning streak.
Now, the veteran right-hander will try to keep it going.
The Twins will go for their sixth win in a row when they play the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday night in Anaheim, Calif. Minnesota stumbled to a 7-13 start but now has pulled within one game of .500, thanks to five straight victories.
Paddack (1-1, 5.57 ERA) set the tone for the week with a sterling performance Monday night, and he will look to stay hot against the Angels. In that outing, he walked none, struck out 10 and scattered six hits in seven shutout innings against the Chicago White Sox.
The 10 strikeouts marked the first time Paddack reached double digits since he struck out 11 on June 18, 2021, as a member of the San Diego Padres.
Paddack’s sparkling performance came on the heels of his worst start of the season. He allowed nine runs on 12 hits in 5 1/3 innings against the Baltimore Orioles on April 16.
Facing the Angels, Paddack will have another opportunity to try to show that his struggles against the Orioles were the exception and not the rule.
“Everybody knows nine earned (runs) and 13 hits against a hungry lineup in Baltimore wasn’t very fun,” Paddack said. “To be able to bounce back and look myself in the mirror knowing nothing is wrong, I don’t need to change who I am or what I did, (pitching seven scoreless innings) kind of speaks for itself.”
This will be Paddack’s first career start against the Angels.
The Angels will counter with right-hander Jose Soriano (0-3, 3.43), who is set to make his fourth start. The 25-year-old is coming off his first quality start of the season after he limited the Cincinnati Reds to three runs (none earned) on three hits in six innings. He walked three and struck out seven.
“I felt great,” Soriano said through an interpreter. “Pretty much every pitch was working, especially the curveball.”
Soriano has pitched one scoreless inning of relief against the Twins in his career.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli praised his hitters, led by Willi Castro, for their approach in the series-opening win. The Angels’ pitchers peppered the Twins with a variety of sliders and changeups and relied less on fastballs, and Baldelli said his hitters adjusted.
Castro finished 3-for-4 with two doubles, an RBI and two runs.
“Willi had a really nice day,” Baldelli said. “We had some big hits from assorted guys through the lineup, too. … I like the way that we just kept grinding out at-bats.”
The Angels will remain without oft-injured third baseman Anthony Rendon, who announced Friday that he had been diagnosed with a torn hamstring after injuring himself last weekend. The team has not set a timetable for Rendon to return but he is expected to miss significant time.
In his fifth season in Anaheim, Rendon has played just 219 games for the Angels.
“I’m definitely not going to be back in the 10-day window,” Rendon said. “It’s been four years running now. So I was angry for a few days, frustrated, mad, everything you could imagine because the game keeps getting taken away from me, right?
“I want to win, and I want to be out there. I do everything in my power to stay out there, and it seems like nothing is working.”
–Field Level Media