Did Chris Paddack get lit up by Yankees because he was tipping pitches?

Things could not have gone worse for Chris Paddack on Tuesday night. After a handful of great starts in which he continued to settle into his role in the rotation, The Sheriff was lit up for five runs on 12 hits against the New York Yankees.

It’s a start that comes in stark contrast to the ones he’s strung together previously. Paddack came into the game having allowed just five runs over his last four starts combined, which seems much more along the lines of what Twins fans have come to expect from him than what happened on Tuesday.

Pitchers have bad starts, that’s jut a fact of baseball life. Just how off Paddack looked seemed strange, though, and there might be an unfortunate explanation for it.

Was Chris Paddack tipping his pitches in loss to Yankees?

Yankees fan and content creator Jomboy was doing what we were all doing and watching his team take on the Twins. While most of us were watching Paddack melt down, Jomboy was seeing something different.

It appears that Paddack might have been tipping his pitches. Jomboy was calling out the exact pitches that Paddack was going to throw, seemingly based on something he was doing with his face and glove, and if he picked up on it then there’s no way the Yankees weren’t also catching on.

Based on how things went, that seems to be what happened.

Pitchers have accidentally tipped pitches for as long as the game has existed, and hitters have almost always picked up on the advantage. This isn’t a trash can banging offense, rather it’s simply being aware enough to know that a pitcher has a tell and exploiting it no differently than someone would at a poker table.

It doesn’t make it any less annoying or frustrating to have it happen to your team, let alone in a game that allows the Yankees to get the upper hand.

Things have generally been going well for the Twins lately, which is why this series against the Yankees is such a bummer. The question is whether this is a hiccup or the start of something worse. If Paddack was tipping his pitches, which is seems like he might have been doing, then it’s a mental mistake the team needs to work on not only with him but as a group.

It’s one thing to have a bad game against a good team, but the Twins can’t allow themselves to be such easy marks.

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