"There he stood, the pitcher formerly known as Franchise, the left-hander who started this ballgame with his place in the rotation in jeopardy and ended it, a short two hours and nine minutes later, the owner of a no-hitter. He walked six batters, threw 123 pitches (tying his career high), struck out only two, and, when it was all over, Francisco Liriano looked relieved.

He watched Matt Tolbert catch Adam Dunn's lineout for the 27th out of the game, he exhaled and, as his teammates rushed in from all sides, showed the smallest semblance of a smile.

Nothing about the outcome of the Twins' 1-0 win over the White Sox was likely, not even the most fundamental of results — that Liriano, with a 9.13 earned-run average entering Tuesday night's game, would lead the Twins to a win. Not that he'd do so by throwing the first complete game at any level of his professional career and certainly not that it would be a no-hitter.

But nothing about this Twins season has been predictable, and Tuesday's result finally offered something to celebrate. Not that this team knew how to go about celebrating the fifth no-hitter in Twins history.

"We kind of all didn't know what to do," first baseman Justin Morneau said. "It's the first one I've been a part of, so I just started running toward the mound and then Drew (Butera) picked him up and hugged him and then we all jumped in there. He was getting beat up, a couple of shots in the ribs."

In the immediate aftermath, Liriano's half smile turned full. He told Fox Sports North he was "so nervous" and "so happy." Not long after, though, his left arm wrapped in ice, Liriano was more subdued, insisting his excitement with a straight face that relayed no such emotion.

"That," Morneau said, "is Frankie."

Perhaps, though, it's hard to know.

The Twins have seen so many versions of this 27-year-old since his 2006 dominance gave way to Tommy John surgery, since his inability to find the strike zone after returning from that elbow surgery left him in the minors, since he admitted being so wracked mentally that he didn't know what pitch to throw with runners on base and, most recently, since he seemed destined for the bullpen if Tuesday's start had not gone well.

Liriano (2-4) needed a turnaround as bad as his team, mired in a six-game losing streak, did. He needed something to hold on to, something to build on, and the White Sox, with their own disastrous start to 2011 weighing heavily, helped him find it.

"I think it's a big weight off his shoulders," pitching coach Rick Anderson said. "He (was) up against it. If a guy says he's not pressing, he's lying."

Liriano's night was not thick with brilliance or ripe with dominant pitches, and Anderson admitted he's "probably seen (Liriano) with better stuff." And with all the walks, Anderson didn't realize his starter was on the way to history until he looked up at the scoreboard in the fifth.

Liriano claimed he didn't realize what was happening until the eighth inning, though when told that, Butera smiled wide and said simply, "He's lying."

"Everybody was walking away from me and nobody was talking to me," Liriano said of his eighth-inning awakening, "so I was like, 'What's going on?' "

Early in the game, what was going on was more of the same from the starter. "