Chris Paddack is latest Minnesota Twins starter to get shelled as Astros roll 10-3 in series opener

HOUSTON – Twins pitchers frequently credit each other for providing good examples they try to emulate on the mound.

So does it work both ways?

Maybe so, given the shocking meltdown the starting rotation has suffered this week. On Friday, Chris Paddack, who had lowered his ERA in 12 consecutive games, followed the example of Simeon Woods Richardson and Bailey Ober over the three previous days by enduring one of the worst performances of his career.

Paddack, who had given up only seven runs over the past month, eclipsed that total in only four brutal innings, dooming the Twins to a 10-3 loss to the Astros at Daikin Park to open a three-game series. The Twins have given up 44 runs over their past four games, their worst four-game stretch since surrendering 48 runs in May 2017.

“Definitely a challenging week, pitching-wise,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Tonight wasn’t Paddy’s night. … It’s happened a few times to us now, but we can use it as motivation.”

Perhaps the worst news of all: Royce Lewis, who smacked a home run in the sixth inning, only his second of the season, apparently re-injured his left hamstring while running out a ninth-inning single. The Twins will determine on Saturday if the injury, which already cost him the first six weeks of this season, will send him back to the injured list.

The thrashing was so bad, it even claimed reliever Danny Coulombe’s year-long streak of scoreless pitching. Summoned to mop up the eighth inning, Coulombe walked Mauricio Dubón, then gave up back-to-back singles to Brendon Rodgers and Jeremy Peña, the latter scoring Dubón. It was the first run off the lefthander after 21 scoreless appearances this year, and 30 straight games overall, a run of 27⅓ innings that dates to May 26, 2024.

Stilll, it was Paddack who suffered the most startling fall. And the weird part was, he said, he felt just as good as he had during his two-month run of excellence.

“I told [pitching coach Pete Maki] between innings, ‘Man, I feel like my stuff is there tonight. I had that wipeout slider, the wipeout curveball, good changeups, good fastball holding the velocity — lot of good when it comes to how you want to feel when you take the mound,” Paddack said. “Some positive feedback with some of the [low] exit velocities I was getting, but with a negative result.”

Four pitches into his start, the tall righthander faced a second-and-third jam with nobody out. He walked the bases loaded with one out, but struck out Jake Meyers to give himself a chance to escape unscathed. But Cam Smith spoiled that plan by looping a single into center field, scoring two, and Jacob Melton followed with an RBI hit of his own.

“Obviously there were some pitches located in spots that he wasn’t aiming for and they made us pay. They’re a team that puts the ball in play,” Baldelli said. “It was almost from the start. Some of those pitches early on weren’t even strikes.”

Smith’s single hurt especially, Paddack said, because it wasn’t hit hard.

“I definitely in my head made it personal there. I was trying to get out of that inning with no runs scored,” Paddack said. “It was one of those balls that just kind of found a hole. I saw the exit velo was [82.7 mph], I was just like, oh man.”

In one inning, Paddack had given up four hits and three runs — figures that equaled or surpassed his totals in seven of his past 11 starts. And after the second inning, in which Jose Altuve doubled home two more runs, the damage was worse than in 10 of his past 11 starts.

“These are the ones that haunt you, just because, what else could I have done?” Paddack said. “If your stuff is up in the zone and you don’t have that wipeout stuff, OK, you just got beat. When you execute, when you get some quick balls put in play and they just find holes or down the line, man, what else can I do to change it?“

BOXSCORE: Houston 10, Twins 3

MLB standings

Somehow, the third inning got worse — Myers led off with a double, Smith singled and Melton drove them both home with a triple to the deepest part of the park. He came home on a sacrifice fly, and the Twins trailed 8-0.

Altuve capped the punishment with a home run into the Crawford boxes in left field on Paddack’s first pitch of the fourth inning, which was overkill by that point. The Twins, after all, were quieted all night by Astros lefthander Colton Gordon, who gave up only solo homers to Lewis and Willi Castro over six innings. Ty France added a third homer in the ninth inning off former Twins lefthander Steven Okert.

Worst of all for Paddack, a proud Texan born and raised a little over two hours away, just outside Austin, was that this beating came in front of family and friends.

“Man, doing something like that [in my] home state, in front of the family …” Paddack said. “But they love me for Chris Paddack, and I’m excited to be able to hug them and spend time with them the next couple of days.”