Twins Minor League Report (8/23): Walker Jenkins Hits First High-A Homer

[Tom Froemming]

Top Twins prospect Walker Jenkins has well-regarded power, but his on-base ability has been more on display this season. On Friday night, however, he got into one. The 19-year-old slugged his first home run since being called up to High-A Cedar Rapids.

Image courtesy of David Malamut (@MWLArchives on X)

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 71-57
St. Paul Saints: 59-64
Wichita Wind Surge: 50-68
Cedar Rapids Kernels: 61-55
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 61-51
FCL Twins: 27-31 (season complete)
DSL Twins: 30-25 (season complete)

TRANSACTIONS
While Twins fans continue to await word on Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, we did get some positive news on another duo. Alex Kirilloff started a rehab assignment with the Saints on Friday night (more on that below) and Brooks Lee will be rehabbing in St. Paul starting on Saturday. 

SAINTS SENTINEL 
St. Paul 14, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 6
Box Score
Alex Kirilloff made an immediate impact in the first game of his rehab assignment. After Diego A. Castillo led off the bottom of the first inning with a single, Kirilloff lined a double into right field. The Saints just kept hitting.

Singles from DaShawn Keirsey Jr., Michael Helman, Jair Camargo, Payton Eeles and then a home run from Rylan Bannon made it a seven-run first inning for St. Paul. Wow. Heck of a way to start a party.

That was just the beginning, as the Saints lineup managed to tack on seven more runs. By the end of the night, they had 14 runs on 16 hits, one walk and a pair of hit batters. All nine men in the starting lineup recorded at least one hit, with Helman and Camargo leading the way with three hits each. Other multi-hit games came from Castillo, Keirsey and Wynton Bernard.

Bannon’s blast was the only home run of the night. How often does a team score 14 runs with only one homer? That seems unusual. It helped that the Saints combined to steal five bases and record eight hits with runners in scoring position. Yep, that’ll do it.

Randy Dobnak was the beneficiary of all that offense. He had an ugly outing (six runs — five earned — on eight hits and a walk with zero strikeouts), but at least managed to go five innings while logging 95 pitches. Ryan Jensen and Nick Wittgren each provided a pair of shutout innings out of the bullpen. 

The first-inning double was Kirilloff’s only hit, as he went 1-for-5 with three strikeouts as the Saints DH. 

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Midland 7, Wichita 4
Box Score
Earlier this month, Marco Raya completed six innings for the first time in more than 50 outings, signaling that perhaps the reins were off. His next start was another good one, but he worked through some trouble. While Raya eclipsed 80 pitches in that outing, a good sign he’s building up stamina, he didn’t make it out of the fifth inning. That brings us to tonight.

Raya opened with a 1-2-3 first inning, but there was a 10-pitch battle in the middle where the opposing hitter fouled off four two-strike pitches. The second inning got off to a shaky start, as the leadoff man singled before Raya walked the next batter. Luckily, Tanner Schobel, Jake Rucker and Aaron Sabato were able to convert a groundball into a double play. Raya struck out the next batter, ending the threat. 

Raya then cruised through the third inning, inducing a pair of flyouts before tacking on his third strikeout. Through three clean innings, Raya was at 42 pitches and looking poised to potentially get deep into this ballgame (well, relatively speaking).

The fourth inning opened with a single, then an error. While ranging to his left, Rucker (the second baseman) appeared to be attempting to field, spin and fire to second base to start a double play. The only problem was he didn’t come up with the ball. Everybody safe.

Raya responded by getting the next batter to pop out, but he couldn’t fully escape the jam. He surrendered a run-scoring single, but retired the next two batters to strand a pair of runners on base. That cost 20 more ticks on the pitch count. Not ideal, but it seemed there was at least a slim possibility six frames could still be on the table.

Raya went back out for the fifth inning, but Rucker did not. He was replaced at second base by Jorel Ortega, no further info was available on that move at the time of this writing. Anyway, Raya failed to retire a batter in the fifth. Infield single, walk, bunt single. His night was over after completing four innings while throwing 76 pitches.

Jaylen Nowlin was handed the unenviable task of taking over with the bases loaded and nobody out. Unfortunately, he gave up a two-run double on the very first pitch he threw.

Midland continued to build their lead, and took a 7-2 advantage into the top of the ninth inning. The pesky Wind Surge tacked on a pair of runs and managed to bring the go-ahead run up to the plate with two outs, but Carson McCusker popped out with the bases loaded to end it.

Earlier in the game, McCusker hit his 15th home run of the season, eclipsing his 2023 total. The former indy ball signing has been on a tear the past two months. 

KERNELS NUGGETS
Dayton 11, Cedar Rapids 4
Box Score
After hitting three home runs in 115 plate appearances last year, Walker Jenkins entered tonight with the same number of homers in 158 more PAs in 2024. The lack of power hitting hasn’t been much of a concern, since he’s getting on base (.392 OBP entering tonight) and making contact (11.7 K%), but it still would be great to see him slug some more.

Well, Jenkins crushed one way out tonight for his first home run since being called up to High-A.

It was great that Jenkins gave us some flashes to get excited about, because this was a rough night for the Kernels. Starting pitcher John Klein surrendered three home runs in 1 2/3 innings, giving up six total runs.      

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers was off tonight, they’ll play a doubleheader on Saturday.

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY 
Pitcher of the Day: Uhhh … Nick Wittgren, St. Paul? (2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K)
Hitter of the Day: Walker Jenkins, Cedar Rapids

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on our recently-updated Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did on Friday. 
#1 Walker Jenkins (Cedar Rapids): 3-for-5, HR (1), 2 R, RBI, K
#6 David Festa (Minnesota): 3 2/3 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 5 K, 75 pitches 
#7 Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids): 1-for-4, R, RBI, 2 K 
#9 Kaelen Culpepper (Cedar Rapids): 2-for-5, R, K
#10 Marco Raya (Wichita): 4 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 3 K, 76 pitches
#17 Tanner Schobel (Wichita): 0-for-3, 2 BB, 2 K

TOMORROW’S PROBABLE STARTERS
St. Paul vs. Scranton/WB, 6:37 pm CT: Andrew Morris
Wichita at Midland, 7 pm CT: Christian MacLeod
Cedar Rapids at Dayton, 6:05 pm CT: Connor Prielipp
Fort Myers at Tampa, 3:00 pm CT: Adrian Bohorquez
Fort Myers at Tampa, Game 2: Paulshawn Pasqualotto

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[Mike Sixel]

Culpeper really having a nice start. I'm more excited for 3-5, than a home run....

[jkcarew]

The good news is Raya is throwing more pitches finally. The bad news is, he still only gets about 12 guys out in the process. 21 starts this year at Wichita, 77.2 innings. And always with 6 days rest between starts. Lots of K’s, but also lots of hits+walks and inefficiency. I’m not sure the ceiling has definitively been lowered in my eyes…but an MLB arrival (as a starter) seems at least a little less like a sure thing, and the timeline for such seems to be lengthening.

[mikelink45]

I am still a believer in pushing the innings.  Raya was not sharp, but sometimes forcing your way through is the best learning experience.  

I am hoping that MLB develops the rule I read about on the Athletic that would force SP to go 5 innings (with some exceptions).  

Glad for Jenkins, but I am not the HR fan that most are.  I like good contact and I loved the look of his swing.

Dobnak gets his 10th, but not that he earned it since it took a 14 run game to give it to him, but he went six despite giving up six.  I don't know his pitch count, but obviously the brakes are off for him - for good reasons. 

[Linus]

I think it’s time for people to temper their expectations for Raya. He’s just not that good at least so far. I think prospect ranking is propping up how people judge him. 

[TopGunn#22]

Jim Kaat always said that what helped him the most in his development into a big league pitcher was his manager in his first year in the minors requiring him to pitch out of difficulty.  Kaat said something like, "He'd come out to the mound and he'd tell me, well sonny, you've dug yourself into a bit of a hole.  Let's see you figure out a way out of it."  

Now, Kaat had a decent fastball, but he was always more concerned with location than velocity.  Teams didn't obsess over pitch counts like they do nowadays either.  But it's well past time for Raya to throw a minimum of 80 pitches per outing come hell or high water.  At this rate, he's being pigeonholed into a 5-inning SP at best and probably a middle relief pitcher at worst.  Take off the darn training wheels and let the kid learn how to pitch!!  Let him learn how to deal with adversity and grow.  

[DJL44]

Raya is definitely headed for his 3rd year in Wichita.

[ryan189]

love how raya gets a huge write up of a game that he was not good.  the writers on this site definitely have there favorite players and it's funny to watch them try to make excuses for them.

[roger]

Really like how Jenkins is progressing in Hi-A.  Began late following his injury, doing very well in A ball.  Moves up to Cedar Rapids and struggles a bit.  Continued to struggle a bit longer than many of us liked.  But then he slowly began improving.  Began with some hits.  Of late, have been frequent doubles in multi-hit games.  Then last night he picks up three hits and a bomb.  Really like his progress and still think this kid just might become a super-star.

The question remains whether or not he will begin next year in Wichita and move all the way to the Twins late in the season?  I guess we will need to stay tuned to learn the answer.

[Tom Froemming]

1 hour ago, ryan189 said:

love how raya gets a huge write up of a game that he was not good.  the writers on this site definitely have there favorite players and it's funny to watch them try to make excuses for them.

It’s mostly a developmental storyline I find very interesting. 

Raya was the starter I was by far most intrigued by on this short slate of games coming into the night over Dobnak and Klein, who both pitched poorly. So I was following his outing closely. 

[tony&rodney]

6 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

I am hoping that MLB develops the rule I read about on the Athletic that would force SP to go 5 innings (with some exceptions). 

Maybe Manfred will make two balls a walk so pitchers have to throw the ball down the middle of the plate too. 

.... or maybe someone (multiples of people) will realize that Manfred has caused enough harm and send him off into retirement.