MINNEAPOLIS — After a week of COVID-induced hell for the Twins, a guy who's already overcome the virus nearly reached baseball heaven.
J.A. Happ, whose Twins career was delayed by a positive test in spring training, took a no-hitter into the eighth inning on Friday. Happ didn't make history, his memorable night spoiled by Jacob Stallings' one-out double to left, but he and the bullpen did manage to deliver the Twins' first victory in more than a week, 2-0 over the Pirates at Target Field.
On a night of the improbable — home runs from their eight- and ninth-place hitters, for instance, or the fact that Stallings was in an 0-for-16 drought when he ruined Happ's masterpiece — it was the lef-thander's hardly overwhelming yet unwaveringly excellent pitching that was the most unlikely. Happ hadn't pitched in 10 days due to the Twins' wreck of a road trip, and hadn't finished five innings in his first two starts for Minnesota.
His mix of 90-mph fastballs and 85-mph sliders were total mysteries on Friday against one of his former teams (and favorite victims), though. Happ, a Pirate for the last two months of the 2015 season, struck out only three of the 25 batters he faced, and he walked Erik Gonzalez and Stallings in the second inning, his only brush with danger.
But Happ was otherwise the master of soft contact. Seven ground balls were turned into outs, only one particularly difficult. Eleven fly balls, none particularly deep and only a couple well-struck, and one popup were easily disposed of. Solo home runs by Willians Astudillo and Jake Cave, the latter of whom entered the game with a .122 average and a team-high 21 strikeouts, provided a cushion for Happ to work with.
The no-hitter appeared spoiled in the fifth inning when Wilmer Difo bounced a grounder back at Happ, who blocked it with his foot. He retrieved the ball and threw too late to first base, and the ball sailed down the right-field line. But umpire Jose Navas ruled that Difo had run too far inside the lane and interfered with the play, and he was called out, ending the inning.
Only Happ's pitch count, which stood at 75 after seven innings, and the knowledge that Twins manager Rocco Baldelli has yet to allow a starter to hit triple-digits this season, raised much alarm.
So as the top of the eighth arrived, Happ appeared cruising toward the sixth no-hitter in Twins history, and the first ever at Target Field. Todd Frazier swung at a first-pitch sinker and chopped it to shortstop Jorge Polanco for the first out. Retiring Stallings for a third time, though, was a much more difficult task.
With the count 1-1, the Pirates' catcher fouled off a couple of fastballs, then took a slider in the dirt and a fastball wide. And when Happ, with his 95th pitch of the night, left a fastball on the inside corner, Stallings turned on it and whistled it down the left-field line, an easy double.
Baldelli hopped out of the dugout, signaled for Tyler Duffey, and the crowd of 9,541 gave the new Twin a standing ovation as he walked off.
Duffey walked Difo but got out of trouble with a ground out and a strikeout. Taylor Rogers pitched the ninth, preserving Happ's first win as a Twin with his first save of the season, striking out Colin Moran to end the game.
