Twins Minor League Report (5/15): It's the Morris and Matthews Show!

[Seth Stohs]

Zebby Matthews and Andrew Morris started on Wednesday afternoon for the Wind Surge and Kernels, respectively. That alone makes it worthwhile for you to continue reading today's minor-league report! 

Image courtesy of David Malamut (@MWLArchives on X, photo of Morris), Ed Bailey (photo of Matthews)

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 24-18 
St. Paul Saints: 17-22 
Wichita Wind Surge: 15-19 
Cedar Rapids Kernels: 20-14
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 14-21
FCL Twins: 6-2  

Let’s get to the report. As always, please feel free to discuss and ask questions. 

TRANSACTIONS
Byron Buxton began a rehab stint with the Saints. . 

SAINTS SENTINEL
St. Paul 0, Omaha 6
Box Score
The up and down season of Louie Varland continued on Wednesday night in St. Paul. He gave up five runs in the second inning and another in the fifth frame. But in five innings, he gave up six runs (5 earned) on seven hits and a walk. He had six strikeouts. 

Ronny Henriquez came in and gave up one hit over two scoreless innings. Nick Wittgren walked one in a scoreless eighth inning. Ryan Jensen gave up one hit in a scoreless ninth. 

The big news heading into the game was that Byron Buxton began a rehab assignment. He batted second and played center field. He went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. Yoyner Fajardo came into the game for him after the seventh inning. He went 1-for-1. DaShawn Keirsey went 2-for-3 with a walk. He stole his 11th base. That accounted for half of the Saints hits. Diego A. Castillo went 1-for-3 with a walk. 

The Saints 4th through 9th batters went a combined 0-for-21 with ninth strikeouts.  

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Wichita 7, Tulsa 1                                                                                                                                                                                      Box Score
At Twins Daily, we’re always trying to think ahead. What’s next? With that in mind, we recently purchased www.WillZebbyEverWalkAnotherBatter.com The URL. Another option is simply to rebrand the site and just call it Zebby Daily. For now, we’ll just write articles about him and follow his success during his starts in the Twins Minor League Reports. 

In his second Double-A start, Matthews gave up one run on three hits over five innings. He had six strikeouts and, you’ve got it, zero walks. Here are the updated numbers… Matthews has now thrown 34 1/3 innings this year. He has 43 strikeouts and ZERO walks. So, will he ever issue a walk? I mean, probably. As a professional, starting with two appearances after the 2022 draft, he has thrown 142 2/3 innings. He has 161 strikeouts to go with just 15 walks. 

But it’s one thing to not walk anyone. He is throwing a high percentage of strikes, pitches in the strike zone, and batters aren’t hitting him hard. His stuff has become very good as well, starting with a fastball that now touches 97 mph. 

Matthews gave up two hits and a run in the first inning. He responded by striking out the side in the second inning. 

Mike Paredes came on and tossed two perfect innings. He got five groundouts on a fly out. Regi Grace came in and got two outs. He gave up a hit, hit a batter, and issued a walk. John Stankiewicz came on and got the final out of the eighth inning and had a 1-2-3 ninth inning. 

After falling behind, the Wind Surge tied the game with a run in the third. Emmanuel Rodriguez hit a triple, and Jeferson Morales hit a double to drive him in. 

They broke it open in the fourth inning with five runs. With one out and the bases loaded, Kyler Fedko doubled to drive in two runs. Rodriguez walked to re-load the bases. After a pitching change, Morales and Noah Cardenas singled in a run each. Kala’i Rosario reached on a force out that scored the fifth run of the inning. 

The Surge scored one more in the seventh inning on a Jake Rucker opposite field homer. 

Morales led the offense. He went 3-for-4 with a walk, his sixth double and two RBI. Quietly Morales is now hitting .343 with a .911 OPS. Rodriguez went 2-for-4 with a walk and his second triple. Rucker was also 2-for-4.  

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 3, Quad Cities 0
Box Score
Pitching wins, and a little-known fact, but if your team doesn’t give up any runs in a game, your team will win. That’s exactly what happened for the Kernels on Wednesday afternoon. 

Andrew Morris improved to 3-1 on the season with his best start of the year. The 22-year-old from Texas Tech tossed seven shutout innings. He gave up just one hit and issued no walks. He had six strikeouts. Morris was remarkably efficient. He needed just 73 pitches to get through seven innings. 54 were strikes. That’s an incredible 74%! 

Ricardo Velez came on and gave up two hits and a walk over two scoreless innings. He struck out four batters to earn his sixth save. 

With two outs in the bottom of the third inning, Luke Keaschall singled and stole second base. Rubel Cespedes walked. A wild pitch moved them up to second and third. Misael Urbina singled in the first two runs of the game. 

Urbina was not in the starting lineup. However, Danny De Andrade left the game early after fielding a ground ball. (photo from MWL Archives via Twitter)  

In the fifth inning, Willie Joe Garry led off with a single. Dillon Tatum followed with a walk. They advanced a base on a wild pitch. Keaschall drove in Garry with a sacrifice fly for the third run of the game.  

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 1, Lakeland 16
Box Score
It’s just one game. Just one loss. That’s all. 

Lakeland scored eight runs in the bottom of the first inning, and then added two runs in the second, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth innings. Paulshawn Pasqualotto was the Twins 12th round pick last summer out of Cal-Berkeley. In this game, he was charged with seven runs on five hits and two walks without recording an out. 

Samuel Perez allowed an inherited runner to score and another run in the first inning. He also gave up two runs in the second inning. He recorded six outs and gave up three runs on four hits and three walks. Ben Ethridge gave up two runs on one hit and one walk in two innings. He had three strikeouts. Juan Bonilla was charged with four runs on five hits and a walk in 1 2/3 innings. Aaron Holiday got the final out of the seventh inning and three more outs. He gave up one hit, walked three and struck out three batters. Brian Meyer went with a position player on the mound in the eighth inning. He had a 1-2-3 inning that included a strikeout. 

The Mussels managed just six hits and a walk in the game. Kyle Hess went 2-for-3. Jose Rodriguez was 1-for-3 with a walk. Payton Eeles went 1-for-2 and drove in the team’s only run with a sacrifice fly.  

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Hitter of the Day – Jeferson Morales (Wichita) - 3-for-4, BB, 2B(6), 2 RBI, K, SB(2).  
Pitcher of the Day – Andrew Morris (Cedar Rapids) - 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K, 73 pitches, 54 strikes (74.0%)

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on the Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did on Wednesday. 

#3 - Emmanuel Rodriguez (Wichita) - 2-for-4, BB, 3B(2), 2 R, K
#11 - Tanner Schobel (Wichita) - 0-for-4, BB, 2 K
#12 – Luke Keaschall (Cedar Rapids) - 1-for-3, R, RBI, SB(12)
#13 - Kala’i Rosario (Wichita) -  1-for-5, RBI, K 
#15 – Danny De Andrade (Cedar Rapids) - 0-for-1 (left with leg injury) 
#16 – Yunior Severino (St. Paul) - 0-for-4, 2 K

THURSDAY’S SCHEDULE AND PITCHING PROBABLES
Omaha @ St. Paul (6:37 PM CST) - RHP Randy Dobnak (3-3, 4.42 ERA) 
Wichita @ Tulsa (7:00 PM CST) - LHP Jaylen Nowlin (2-2, 3.33 ERA)
Quad Cities @ Cedar Rapids (6:35 PM CST) - RHP Darren Bowen (2-2, 4.43 ERA)
Fort Myers @ Lakeland (5:30 PM CST) - RHP Ty Langenberg (0-3, 4.44 ERA)
FCL Rays @ FCL Twins (11:00 AM) - TBD

Please feel free to ask questions and discuss Wednesday’s games or any other Twins minor league topics! 

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[FlyingFinn]

Zebby Matthews is incredible. Morris at Cedar Rapids should probably be moved up to join Zebby. Have to find some guys to backfill with the Kernels. I like Velez as a relief pitcher, at least looking at his stats.

Bad news on De Andrade and Gonzalez. Keirsey just keeps looking like the one hitter at St. Paul who is ready for MLB, and his defense has always been great.

[Dman]

Really nice Report Seth not much to add.  I know we all like Cossetti, Olivar and Cardenas at catcher and I think all three are in the top 30 om MLB.com.. And yet the forgotten catcher Morales has the highest OPS among all of them.  We'll see how the year plays out but the Twins sure do seem to have a lot of catchers in the system who can hit. Even down at A ball they have Poncho Ruiz who looks like he might be the most well rounded catcher in the system.

[LambchoP]

Keirsey Jr is really playing like he wants a promotion to the bigs. Mathews may be the starting pitcher we've been trying to develop for years. Between him, Festa and Raya I'd say we've got a good shot at at least one or two of them becoming solid contributing SP, with the other (maybe Raya) moving to a bullpen role.

[roger]

Glad seeing Buxton back in center field for the Saints, Seth.  Although 0-3 with two K's indicates he is a bit rusty.  Do you think he will be with the Twins in Cleveland Friday?  Or will he spend the weekend getting a few more at bats with the Saints?

See ERod got a couple hits for Wichita, including a triple.  He has a nice .998 OPS.  Do you see him spending the entire year at AA?  Or is he likely to move up to the Saints so he is more ready to join the Twins in 2025?  

[DocBauer]

1 hour ago, Dman said:

Really nice Report Seth not much to add.  I know we all like Cossetti, Olivar and Cardenas at catcher and I think all three are in the top 30 om MLB.com.. And yet the forgotten catcher Morales has the highest OPS among all of them.  We'll see how the year plays out but the Twins sure do seem to have a lot of catchers in the system who can hit. Even down at A ball they have Poncho Ruiz who looks like he might be the most well rounded catcher in the system.

I remember when Morales had a big 2021,  after a couple solid season leagues, and we thought we had something. The bat disappeared in 2022. It seemed to  come back some in 2023 but it was only 52 games. IIRC, he had an injury that slowed him at some point?

It's still early, of course, but he's off to a heck of a start for this season.

[Cory Engelhardt]

Great writeup, as always.

Excited to see Darren Bowen some more. Looking forward to following that game tonight too.

[saviking]

Really need to move Garland back to the pen in my humble opinion..

[USNMCPO]

4 hours ago, saviking said:

Really need to move Garland back to the pen in my humble opinion..

I assume you mean Varland...

[D.C Twins]

1. Jackson DFA'ed 

2. Varland to MLB bullpen

3. Zebby to AAA

4. E-Rod to AAA

5. Cespedes to AA

All of the above are when and not if.... so let's move up the timeline of that 'when' please