Twins Minor League Report (8/8): Tanner Hall, Cory Lewis, Zebby Matthews Pitch Great Again

[Ted Schwerzler]

The Minnesota Twins were off on Thursday before gearing up for a big series against the Cleveland Guardians. The farm system was in full swing though, and it was the pitching performances that stood out across the group.

Image courtesy of William Parmeter

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 63-50
St. Paul Saints: 56-54
Wichita Wind Surge: 45-60
Cedar Rapids Kernels: 56-47
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 54-46
DSL Twins: 24-22

TRANSACTIONS

• RHP Adam Plutko placed on IL by St. Paul with a forearm strain.
• RHP Louie Varland will be recalled by Minnesota to start on Friday.

SAINTS SENTINEL
St. Paul 1, Columbus 1
Box Score
Zebby Matthews started for the Saints and it appears he has begun to settle in. Matthews worked five innings allowing just a single run on two hits and (gasp) a walk. Matthews also struck out five and continues to look like an arm that Rocco Baldelli may call on for the big league club down the stretch.

Columbus scored on a Will Brennan first inning home run before the Saints answered with an Anthony Prato single in the second inning. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. scored and the sides remained even until the ninth inning. With no one out and runners on second and third, Rylan Bannon stepped in. He drew a walk to load the bases. Dalton Shuffield was up looking to drive in the winning run, and St. Paul needed to improve from their ugly 1-for-13 with RISP on the evening. Unfortunately he struck out. Jair Camargo did not though, and his single brought Prato in to walk it off. 

Rehabbing Twins infielder Kyle Farmer went 2-for-3 with a double and a walk. Prato also had a pair of hits, while Edouard Julien doubled. Giovanny Gallegos worked a scoreless inning in relief and Matt Bowman got the victory.

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Corpus Christi 2, Wichita 1
Box Score
Cory Lewis was on the bump Thursday night for the Wind Surge and he turned in the best Double-A outing of his career. Lewis threw six innings of one (unearned) run baseball. He allowed just a pair of hits, and though he walked three, he struck out nine. Lewis also threw 56 of his 87 pitches for strikes.

Wichita trailed 1-0 into the ninth inning until Tanner Schobel went yard for the eighth time this season to tie things up. Jarret Whorff, who was one of the Twins best minor league relievers in July, got Wichita in position by throwing a pair of perfect innings with three strikeouts.

Unfortunately Regi Grace couldn’t get Wichita to the tenth inning and a Hooks run walked them off. Both sides recorded just three hits. Schobel’s was the only extra-base knock for Wichita. He also stole his 11th base of the season, and Aaron Sabato grabbed his seventh.

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 5, Peoria 4
Box Score
It was bump day for Ricky Castro with the Kernels on Thursday. He worked three innings allowing three runs on five hits and a pair of walks. The Kernels starter struck out a pair.

Misael Urbina drove in Nate Baez in the second inning to score the game’s first run. Cedar Rapids then coughed up three in the bottom half. Peoria pushed it to a 4-1 lead in the sixth inning, but the Kernels answered with a run in the eighth inning. Nick Lucky drove in Rubel Cespedes on a single to make it 4-2. Jose Salas then clubbed a bases-loaded double, scoring Agustin Ruiz, Baez, and Lucky to give the Kernels their first lead of the night.

Jordan Carr, Juan Mendez, and Rafael Marcano combined to work five innings of relief. The only run allowed was an unearned tally tacked to Carr’s outing. Cedar Rapids tallied seven hits with Cespedes and Kyle Hess grabbing two of them each. Both of Hess’ hits were doubles.

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 2, Jupiter 0
Box Score
Tanner Hall started for the Mighty Mussels and was nearly perfect. The Fort Myers starter worked seven scoreless innings allowing just a pair of hits while striking out seven. He gave up only a single walk.

Brandon Winokur kicked off the scoring early with a solo shot, his ninth, in the first inning. Fort Myers added a second run when Khadim Diaw scored on an error. Winokur’s pair of hits were the only multi-hit effort, and the homer was the only extra-base hit.

Fort Myers struck out ten times but drew five walks.

DOMINICAN DAILIES
DSL Twins 7, DSL Tigers2 4
Box Score
Anderson Chacon started for the Twins and worked 3 1/3 innings allowing a single run (unearned). He did give up three free passes though and didn’t record a strikeout on the day. Aiberson Ventura got the win with 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief.

While the Twins struck out seven times and didn’t draw a walk, they did rack up 11 hits on the day. Merphy Hernandez, Eduardo Beltre, Carlos Silva, and Guillermo Sosa all recorded two-hit games. Silva picked up a double while Hernandez and Daiber De Los Santos both tripled.

Hernandez continues to be a menace on the bases and stole his 29th bag. In just 39 games, he has been thrown out only twice this season.

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Pitcher of the Day – Tanner Hall (Fort Myers) - 7.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K
Hitter of the Day – Brandon Winokur (Fort Myers) - 2-3, R, RBI, HR(9), 2 BB, K

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on the Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did on Thursday. 
#1– Walker Jenkins (Cedar Rapids) – 
#4 – Luke Keaschall (Wichita) – 0-4
#5 – Zebby Matthews (St. Paul) – 5.0 IP, 
#7 – Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids) – 0-4, K
#12 – Brandon Winokur (Fort Myers) – 2-3, R, RBI, HR(9), 2 BB, K
#13 – Cory Lewis (Wichita) – 6.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 9 K
#14 - Yasser Mercedes (Fort Myers) - 1-5, 3 K
#16 - Kyle DeBarge (Fort Myers) - 0-4, BB, K
#17 – Tanner Schobel (Wichita) – 1-3, R, RBI, HR(8), BB, K, SB(11)

FRIDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
St. Paul vs Columbus (7:07 PM CST) – TBD
Wichita @ Corpus Christi (7:05 PM) - RHP Marco Raya (1-3, 5.54 ERA)
Cedar Rapids @ Peoria (7:05 PM CST) – RHP C.J. Culpepper (2-1, 2.88 ERA)
Fort Myers @ Jupiter (5:30 PM CST) – RHP Jose Olivares (2-1, 2.86 ERA)

Please feel free to ask questions and discuss Thursday’s games!

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[Dman]

Hall pitched really well again tonight.  His line for August 1.38 ERA, .62 WHIP and 16 K's in 13 innings.  Utterly dominant his last two times out.  With the walks and hits way down he could be a monster mover next year.  Maybe he gets a few games in at CR this year yet.  Really cool to see him this dominant given his rough start to the year.

Lewis seems to be back in top form.  Got out of a couple of jams in this one as well.  9K's in 6 innings and he got some of those when he really needed them.  I know the fastball might not blow anyone away, but when he is on he is just really tough on hitters.

And of course Zebby was Zebby tonight.  Gave up a HR on a high fastball but other than that did his thing. 2 hits and 1 walk over 5 innings.  I think he is starting to figure out AAA using different approaches.  He was using his fastball a lot in this one.

Man three really great pitching performances makes me feel spoiled, but I love it.

Winokur continues to hit the ball hard.  Another HR and two hit night.  Nice to see him not slowing down late in the season.

Fun night on the pitching side and hopefully the bats will look better tomorrow.

[Blyleven2011]

Why do they steal bases in the minors  ( hernandez with 29 steals ) ,  when they don't want to risk injuries and steal bases in the majors ( its a tool , use it )   ...

Every club is stealing bases on the twins  but it seems we do have some speedsters  but don't use them enough to steal bases  , it's alot easier to go from second to home than first to home  ...

[mikelink45]

How great to see Hall, Lewis, and Matthews all pitch strong games.  I feel like Winokur is going to climb the prospect list some more this year.

[JD-TWINS]

Does the organization dare call-up Matthews to pitch in Tuesday? He’d have 4 days rest between starts. Questioning where his head is at relative to handling the Show? Not sure but I think he was in A ball 8-9 weeks ago?

Even if he just threw 3 innings or 1 time through v. K.C. it could be a shot in the arm for the Staff as nobody will be rested for that game. If not him who? ……Again, please don’t suggest Dobnak.

[Trov]

Matthews may get called up if there is a 60 day IL candidate that will be out for season.  If not, it will reduce the chance he gets called up because they will need to DFA someone to put him on the 40 man or DFA someone when the person on the 60 day comes off.  Dobnak would be someone they would DFA again, but assuming that might happen when Topa comes off the 60 day. 

[Linus]

I love Twins Daily but instead of trotting out the nth version of some story on the front page why not do a story on a kid like Tanner Hall. Where is he from? How old? What is his pitch mix? Does he have a prominent strength or a glaring weakness?  Seems like a missed opportunity for TD writers looking for content. 

[Mike Sixel]

31 minutes ago, Linus said:

I love Twins Daily but instead of trotting out the nth version of some story on the front page why not do a story on a kid like Tanner Hall. Where is he from? How old? What is his pitch mix? Does he have a prominent strength or a glaring weakness?  Seems like a missed opportunity for TD writers looking for content. 

There is an article on Hall ...

[Steve Lein]

42 minutes ago, Linus said:

I love Twins Daily but instead of trotting out the nth version of some story on the front page why not do a story on a kid like Tanner Hall. Where is he from? How old? What is his pitch mix? Does he have a prominent strength or a glaring weakness?  Seems like a missed opportunity for TD writers looking for content. 

Hi Linus! Please don't disregard scrolling down the front page or searching a player's name from our search bar. You must have not visited yesterday, as the specific piece you are requesting is right there/here. We are here to please! 

 

[jmlease1]

Fun night for the pitching pipeline.

Good to see Matthews have a strong outing. I'll be very happy if he finishes the season in AAA strong and has people thinking about him for the rotation next season, even if I think it's most likely that he starts the season in AAA.

Lewis is looking healthy, which is the most important thing, but having positive results that make him look like the guy we got hyped about last season is excellent. Looking forward to him finishing strong as well.

Tanner Hall is interesting, and doing ok in his first professional season. The last 2 starts have been quite good, and if he can show that kind of consistency, he'll move up quickly. I love a pitcher with an elite changeup, and if he's figuring out his command/control issues from earlier in the season, he's got some possibilities. Especially if the twins are able to add a little more velocity to his fastball along the way...

I feel like SWR has done enough to have the inside track for a rotation job next season (with the assumption that Lopez, Ryan, Ober, and Paddack are the presumptives on the other 4 slots), which could potentially give us a rotation in AAA featuring Festa, Varland, Matthews, Lewis. And make it unnecessary to throw money at a journeyman veteran 5th starter type and have options in AAA that have real futures as the call-ups against injury. 

I've been feeling better about our starting options in AAA every year lately, which is relatively new and fun. Kinda cool to go from hoping 1-2 guys might be able to do something to feeling good about 1-2 guys, to feeling good about 3 or more...

[mikelink45]

3 hours ago, Trov said:

Matthews may get called up if there is a 60 day IL candidate that will be out for season.  If not, it will reduce the chance he gets called up because they will need to DFA someone to put him on the 40 man or DFA someone when the person on the 60 day comes off.  Dobnak would be someone they would DFA again, but assuming that might happen when Topa comes off the 60 day. 

They can DFA farmer, they can even DFA Martin and certainly Dobnak.  They can DFA a lot of players when I look at the actual 40 man roster 40 man according to MLB.com add Okert, Richards, Paddock and Winder.  Adjusting the 40 man is the least of our problems.

And I expect a lot of reactions to my list.  

[Mike Sixel]

3 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

They can DFA farmer, they can even DFA Martin and certainly Dobnak.  They can DFA a lot of players when I look at the actual 40 man roster 40 man according to MLB.com add Okert, Richards, Paddock and Winder.  Adjusting the 40 man is the least of our problems.

And I expect a lot of reactions to my list.  

Zero chance they dfa Martin. Zero 

Farmer is starting today, and they love veterans. Love.

Agree on Dobnak. 

[Ted Schwerzler]

8 hours ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Why do they steal bases in the minors  ( hernandez with 29 steals ) ,  when they don't want to risk injuries and steal bases in the majors ( its a tool , use it )   ...

Every club is stealing bases on the twins  but it seems we do have some speedsters  but don't use them enough to steal bases  , it's alot easier to go from second to home than first to home  ...

I think the DSL numbers can be taken with a relative grain of salt. Pitchers and catchers there are relatively incapable of controlling the running game. I wish it was more philosophically included for the Twins though.

[Linus]

3 hours ago, Steve Lein said:

Hi Linus! Please don't disregard scrolling down the front page or searching a player's name from our search bar. You must have not visited yesterday, as the specific piece you are requesting is right there/here. We are here to please! 

 

Wow. Thanks. The tip on the search bar is excellent.