Twins shut out Cubs 3-0 for fifth victory in a row

CHICAGO – David Festa isn’t the type of pitcher who shows much emotion on the mound, almost always walking back to the dugout with the same expression on his face.

His performance at Wrigley Field, however, elicited a shout after he struck out Ian Happ with two runners on base in the fifth inning Monday. It was the best start of his brief big-league career, after all.

Festa, making his fifth major league outing, struck out a career-high nine across five scoreless innings and he paved the path for the Twins to earn a 3-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs, extending the club’s winning streak to five games. The Twins, who notched their sixth shutout of the season, pulled within 3½ games of the first-place Cleveland Guardians in the American League Central, their closest deficit in the standings since May 17.

“When he was coming up, you hear about the swing and miss,” said catcher Ryan Jeffers, referencing Festa’s 89 strikeouts in 15 Class AAA starts.

One of the challenges for Festa through his first four career outings was pitching well when navigating lineups multiple times. Entering Monday, opposing batters had a .410 OPS when they faced the Twins’ top-rated pitching prospect for the first time, and a 1.350 OPS in their next plate appearance.

After giving up a leadoff single in the third inning, Festa walked Happ with two outs in the third inning when the Cubs lineup flipped over. Then he stranded two runners by striking out Michael Busch, an Inver Grove Heights native.

Festa maintained laser focus during his outing. He forgot the count when Mike Tauchman whiffed on a changeup with two outs in the fourth inning, taking several steps toward the dugout before realizing it was only the second strike of the at-bat.

“That first pitch, it looked like [home plate umpire Tony Randazzo] had turned to the right and signaled strike,” Festa said. “I couldn’t really hear, but supposedly he said ‘in.’ I mean, it was my fault. I misheard.”

It didn’t shake Festa. Two pitches later, Festa struck out Tauchman on a called third strike with an elevated slider. Six of his nine strikeouts came on sliders.

With two outs in the fifth inning, Pete Crow-Armstrong lined a double down the right-field line. After starting Miguel Amaya, the No. 9 batter in the Cubs lineup, with a 2-0 count, pitching coach Pete Maki walked out of the dugout for a mound visit. Festa, focused on his next pitch, stepped onto the pitching rubber and looked toward home plate, unaware Maki was already past the first-base line.

Amaya drew a walk, but Festa struck out Happ with three swings and misses to end his outing. Festa allowed two hits and two walks against the 19 batters he faced.

“There are times where we may not leave him in, in that particular spot, but the way the outing went for him, he showed us a lot of things,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

The Twins took a one-run lead in the third inning after a Royce Lewis sacrifice fly, but a Trevor Larnach baserunning blunder cost them at least one more run. Matt Wallner skied a fly ball in right-center field, and Cubs outfielders Crow-Armstrong and Tauchman lost the ball in the lights. The ball dropped for a hit on the warning track, but Larnach was barely past second base because he thought there was only one out.

Once Larnach started running, it was too late. He was waved home by third base coach Tommy Watkins when Crow-Armstrong’s throw went toward second base, but he was thrown out at the plate by several steps.

“When we have a legitimate issue with effort, then I have a serious issue with the player,” Baldelli said. “That’s not effort. Although it looks really bad, that was a mental error that cost us, but that was not effort.”

Larnach added: “You learn from it, and you move on. Better for it to happen in a game like this where you end up winning.”

Manuel Margot hit his first homer against a righthanded pitcher this season, connecting on a Kyle Hendricks changeup to begin the fifth inning, and the Twins added a run on a double play in the ninth.