fielding independent pitching<\/a>) suggests that he\u2019s pitching better than the results indicate.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nMatt Chapman accounted for the Giants\u2019 only run against Paddack, lining a solo shot into the left-field bleachers in the seventh inning for his eighth home run of the season.<\/p>\n
The Giants didn\u2019t get their first baserunner of the evening until Christian Koss lined a single into right-center field with two outs in the top of the sixth inning. The Friday night crowd at Target Field groaned once Koss\u2019 line drive found grass, then showered Paddack with applause for his efforts. Unfazed by the single, Paddack responded by getting Mike Yastrzemski to fly out and end the sixth inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was locating. Didn\u2019t walk anybody. He was using all his pitches, probably used his slider a little bit more,\u201d Melvin said of Paddack, who was 0-3 with a 5.57 ERA in seven starts entering Friday\u2019s game. \u201cHe was locating with everything. He hadn\u2019t pitched more than five innings this year, so a little disappointing on our end, but you got to give him credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Francisco nearly broke into the hit \u2014 and run \u2014 column much earlier.<\/p>\n
On Paddack\u2019s eighth pitch of the night, Willy Adames pulled a four-seam fastball down the left-field line. It cleared the wall by plenty of feet, and third base umpire Ramon De Jesus signaled that the ball was fair. Adames began jogging around the bases, but his trot soon slowed into a brisk walk. The call was overturned and Adames stepped back into the box, striking out two pitches later.<\/p>\n
For most of the night, Adames\u2019 loud foul ball was the closest that the Giants got to putting a runner on base.<\/p>\n
Paddack made quick work of San Francisco, filling up the strike zone and generating quick outs. He needed five pitches to retire the side in the second inning, and eight pitches to do so in the fifth inning. It should come as no surprise, then, that Paddack needed two pitches or fewer to record nine\u00a0outs. Only one Giant \u2014 LaMonte Wade Jr., appropriately enough \u2014 worked a three-ball count against Paddack.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a group that rallies together in those middle innings and put stuff together,\u201d Koss said. \u201cA lot of early contact that was getting us out. It\u2019s hard to string things together. We had a couple guys on. We had some action, but just run into a good guy every once in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Melvin: \u201cWe didn\u2019t get too many good swings on it. Wasn\u2019t our best effort today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Twins took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first on Trevor Larnach\u2019s RBI single, then doubled the advantage to 2-0 in the bottom of the fourth on Carlos Correa\u2019s RBI single. In the bottom of the fifth, Harrison Bader scored on a single when left fielder Heliot Ramos misplayed the ball, extending the advantage to 3-0. For Paddack and the bullpen, that run support was plenty.<\/p>\n
Worth noting<\/p>\n
Jerar Encarnacion (left hand fracture) could potentially start his rehab assignment on Saturday, Melvin said pregame. Melvin added that Casey Schmitt (left oblique strain) isn\u2019t too far behind Encarnacion.
\nLou Trivino, who was designated for assignment on Monday, cleared waivers and elected free agency. Melvin said he was \u201csurprised\u201d that Trivino cleared waivers, adding he would \u201creally be surprised if he didn\u2019t get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: May 9, 2025 at 7:16 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Chris Paddack wasn\u2019t quite perfect. But he was close enough. Paddack flirted with a perfect game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,7939,5775,853,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-15682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-giants-alert","11":"tag-inside-sports","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-san-francisco","15":"tag-san-francisco-giants","16":"tag-sanfrancisco","17":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","18":"tag-sf","19":"tag-sf-giants","20":"tag-sfgiants","21":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114483002370616173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}