Minor Leagues

Byron Buxton went deep in Rochester and Miguel Sano went hitless for Fort Myers. Fort Myers and Elizabethton both put up football scores on their opponents and almost all of the affiliates were victorious on Friday night. More below.

There were too many great performances across the Twins’ minor league system to mention them all in this intro, but Lewis Thorpe was particularly impressive. He had 12 strikeouts and only gave up one hit and one walk over seven innings. Holy smokes. Check out what else happened in the minors on Thursday.

As the short-season minor leagues get going, it’s a lot of fun to highlight a lot of Firsts: First hits, first doubles, first wins, etc. There were a lot of firsts in Elizabethton on Wednesday night. Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton both played in minor league games on Wednesday. Adalberto Mejia is also doing a good job of trying to get his name back on the forefront in the minds of Twins fans and front office personnel.

It was a busy night in the system on Tuesday, as the short season leagues have kicked off and two affiliate’s leagues played their All-Star games. The Minnesota Twins farm teams went 4-0 on the night, and a little-known player out of the Dominican Republic had an incredible game in the Gulf Coast League.

(Twins Daily Note: In a Jeff Johnson story in The Gazette from Cedar Rapids, Royce Lewis noted that he has been diagnosed with Patellar tendinitis and he has been playing with the injury for about a month. He did play in the Midwest League All Star game on Tuesday night, so it is considered a minor injury. Today, Heezy tells us all about patellar tendinitis.)

The Twins community recently received some concerning news about highly-regarded prospect Royce Lewis. Lewis left the Cedar Rapids Kernels Saturday game with what is being reported as ‘patellar tendinitis’, which has been causing him trouble off-and-on for about a month. But what is ‘patellar tendinitis’ exactly? And what might it mean for Royce going forward? Let’s discuss:

On Monday, the GCL Twins began their 2018 season with a win against the GCL Orioles. After previewing the Elizabethton Twinsyesterday, today we preview the Gulf Coast League Twins.

While the Rochester Red Wings had the day off, and the Chattanooga Lookouts and Cedar Rapids Kernels started their All-Star breaks, today we post our first short-season game summary. The GCL Twins played their first game of the 2018 season and gave new manager Dan Ramsey his first win as a professional manager.

In 2017, the Elizabethton Twins won the Appalachian League championship. The team will begin their quest to defend the title on Tuesday night when they host the Burlington Royals at Joe O’Brien Stadium in Elizabethton.

Life as a minor league player can be tough. Few players ever get to live out their dream as a regular player at the big league level. For every player who realizes their dream, another player is forced to be released or find another organization to keep his dream alive.

Right-handed pitcher Zack Jones was released from the Twins organization on Sunday. The 27-year old was drafted by the organization in the fourth round of the 2012 MLB Draft. He pitched seven years in the minor leagues and reached Triple-A once in 2016. This actually came in the Brewers organization after being taken by Milwaukee in the Rule 5 Draft.

This year with the Lookouts he had a 2.49 ERA in 25.1 innings with a 39 to 25 strikeout to walk ratio. He was over 2.5 years older than the competition in the Southern League.

Seven Miracle players played in the Florida State League on Saturday night. Rochester had a near-shutout until late, but Nick Gordon played hero. Cedar Rapids had a near-shutout until late when a former Gophers baseball star played hero. An offensive outburst meant that the Lookouts didn’t need late-inning heroics. In fact, inclement weather meant that there weren’t late innings.

It’s All-Star weekend in the Florida State League, and on Friday night, Miracle infielder Travis Blankenhorn won the home run derby. Cedar Rapids has just two games remaining before the Midwest League All-Star Game, and they prepared by scoring a dozen runs. Unfortunately, offense was less abundant for the Twins top two minor league affiliates on Friday.

Welcome to another edition of the Twins Prospect Pulse, a new feature on Twins Daily inspired from suggestions from you, the readers. There have been numerous players promoted over the past few weeks and a lot of players who got off to slow starts are suddenly surging. Here's how each affiliate is performing, a rundown of the Twins Daily top 20 prospects and another 10 names of note. Here we go …