Twins Minor League Report (3/28): Saints Dominate Opener

[Tom Froemming]

There’s a lot to get excited about in St. Paul this season, as the Saints have one of the more stacked Triple-A rosters the system has ever produced. It was all on display Friday night at CHS Field.

Image courtesy of Rob Thompson, St. Paul Saints

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 0-1
St. Paul Saints: 1-0
Wichita Wind Surge, Cedar Rapids Kernels, Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: All open play on April 4.
FCL Twins: Open play in early May.
DSL Twins: Open play in early June.

TRANSACTIONS
There were no new transactions on Friday, but the Saints just announced their 2025 roster yesterday. In case you missed it, here’s a link to Seth’s full preview of this year’s Saints squad.

SAINTS SENTINEL 
St. Paul 11, Indianapolis 0
Box Score

Opening Day Lineup
A lot has been made about how stacked the Saints rotation is, and for good reason, but this is also a good-looking Triple-A lineup with both guys who’ve seen time in the majors and some of the top prospects in the entire system. Here’s how the lineup looked for the opener:

LF Austin Martin
DH Luke Keaschall
CF Emmanuel Rodriguez
3B Armando Alvarez
1B Mike Ford
C Jair Camargo
RF Yunior Severino
2B Jeferson Morales
SS Ryan Fitzgerald

Keaschall and Rodriguez, both still only 22 years old, are the headliners. Keaschall is has recently begun working some in the field, but he’ll likely DH a good amount in the early going. Rodriguez missed most of spring training with an ankle injury, so it’s amazing to not only see him active, but in center field. Keachall was making his Triple-A debut.

Severino and Morales started positions in which they’re trying to establish themselves. Severino has mostly been a first baseman and third baseman in recent years, but he made 10 starts in right field last season. Morales, the 2025 Sire of Fort Myers, has mostly played left field with some catching mixed in, but he made 22 starts at second base for Wichita last year. More positional flexibility will open up more potential doors to the next level, so it’s worth monitoring how Severino and Morales do in these opportunities.

Opening Day Starting Pitcher
I’m sure David Festa would rather be in the big leagues, but being the Saints No. 1 starter is a somewhat significant honor in itself. Zebby Matthews, Andrew Morris, Marco Raya and Cory Lewis are all also with the Saints. This rotation is absolutely stacked.

Festa has a case for belonging at the highest level, however, as he pitched to a 3.81 ERA (3.15 FIP) over his final 54 1/3 innings with the Twins last year. With the entire Twins rotation entering the year healthy, Festa will have to bide his time. Lucky for him, it never seems to take too much time for an opportunity to present itself.

Festa’s current situation reminds me a lot of the position Bailey Ober was in entering 2023. Big Bailey was clearly worthy of the majors and had 31 MLB starts under his belt. Despite that being the case, a crowded rotation of more senior hurlers led to Ober opening 2023 with St. Paul. He only had to make four starts with the Saints before the door opened up for his return. 

Festa Gets His Work In
While Festa doesn’t necessarily have anything to prove in Triple-A, there are a couple things he needs to work on. It’d be great if he could be more efficient, giving him more of a chance to pitch deeper into games. Tonight, Festa only needed 58 pitches to complete five innings, throwing over two-thirds of them for strikes. Since he’s still building up arm strength, Festa wasn’t given the opportunity to go more than five frames, but he emphatically checked the efficiency box.

The other thing that would be great to see from Festa is a fourth pitch. He can be successful with his four-seam fastball, slider and changeup — we’ve seen it — but one more look could take his game to the next level. While it can take the Statcast/Hawk-Eye technology a few outings to calibrate to a new pitch mix at times, we’ll take it for face value. According to the data, Festa only threw his new sinker once. Again, that may or may not be accurate, but that pitch should be something Festa continues to tinker with. 

Rodriguez’s Hot Start
It was great just to see Emmanuel Rodriguez’s name in the lineup, but he even treated us to a couple of his signature beautifully violent swings that produced three hits to the opposite field. Rodriguez collected the first Saints hit of the 2025 season with an oppo single in the first inning. He followed that up by also collecting the first RBIs of the season, lacing a two-run double that had an exit velocity of 113.6 mph.

Rodriguez struck out swinging in the fourth inning, drew a four-pitch walk in the sixth inning and then hit a single in the seventh frame. Heck of a debut from a guy we weren’t even 100 percent sure would be out there. 

Keaschall’s Triple-A Debut
Luke Keaschall is a consensus top-60 or so prospect in all of baseball, logged 59 games at Double-A last year and got a long look in spring training. It’s difficult to paint his opening the year in St. Paul as a surprise, but it also wouldn’t have been a shock if he returned to Wichita instead. He’s also still in the final stages of recovering from Tommy John surgery, after all.

Keaschall, the DH, was retired in his first two at-bats before collecting his first Triple-A hit and RBI in the fourth inning. After another strikeout, Keaschall added a second single in the seventh inning.

Saints Dominate
Along with Emmanuel Rodriguez, Jair Camargo also recorded three hits. Every Saints hitter had a multi-hit game except for Mike Ford, who managed to draw a pair of walks. The lineup scored 11 runs without the benefit of a home run.

The bullpen was similarly impressive. After Festa went five, Scott Blewett covered a pair of innings before Kyle Bischoff and Kody Funderburk pitched a frame each. Combined, those relievers pitched four shutout innings with one hit, a pair of walks and five strikeouts. 

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY 
Pitcher of the Day: David Festa (5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K)
Hitter of the Day: Emmanuel Rodriguez (3-for-4, 2B, BB, R, RBI, K)

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Check out the Prospect Tracker for more. 
2. Emmanuel Rodriguez (St. Paul): 3-for-4, 2B, BB, R, RBI, K
3. Luke Keaschall (St. Paul): 2-for-6, RBI, 2 K
5. Andrew Morris (St. Paul): DNP
6. Marco Raya (St. Paul): DNP
9. Cory Lewis (St. Paul): DNP

TOMORROW’S PROBABLE STARTERS
Saints: Andrew Morris

 

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[gregens]

Way to go Festa and the rest of the gang!

[Doctor Gast]

Indians' Ashcraft pitched a good game but Emma hit at will & Martin was confident against him. Martin did well as leadoff, no SO & scoring from 1B off of Emma's double to help get the scoring started. I'd like Martin to play 2B to get him reorienated so he'd be call up to help the Twins there. But I imagined that Gardenhire was instructed to keep Martin in the OF where he's not needed.

Festa looked good but IMO could improve his control. Great beginning for the Saints.

[Fatbat]

What a great way to open the season!! Wow!! Looks like The Saints are full of drafted, developing talent.  Good also to not see Kiersey in the lineup 😎

Got 3 healthy young SP that are on the 40man so the big club has immediate depth pieces available. 

Let the Emma/LK show begin! Lots of fireworks across the river this spring!!

[nclahammer]

Thank you Tom and Twins Daily.  These minor league reports are the French vanilla creamer to my coffee.   Love them and welcome back to the minor league teams.

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[LambchoP]

So glad these daily minor league updates are back!

[Linus]

Great to see a minor league report. Also great to see some of the highest rated prospects in AAA

[Craig Arko]

2 hours ago, olerud said:

Bsky social???? What happened to X?

1939.

[FlyingFinn]

Lots of great news, especially E Rod playing. I'm sure they are going to limit Festa and Matthews pitches, only to make sure they are ready to go the entire year, including time with the Twins.

One scary thing in the lineup but it didn't affect anything last night - Severino in RF. Inexperienced out there and probably the slowest right-fielder in AAA.

[PDX Twin]

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The lineup scored 11 runs without the benefit of a home run.

Music to my aging eyes!

[Linus]

Love the powder blue uniforms as well.

[rdehring]

Thanks for the report, Tom.  And isn't it great to have baseball back in St. Paul, especially back with so many exciting young prospects.

Year after year I would wish that the Twins AAA team would have a starting rotation with some big time prospects in it.  Even just one or two.  Well, this rotation is like a piece of apple pie with ice cream to this old guy's dinner, ie a slice of heaven!

[jmlease1]

Lot of guys to be watching in AAA: deep rotation, some highly ranked prospects in the lineup, and some interesting other players to wonder about. And Eeles isn't even back from his knee injury yet!

Wasn't sure where Keaschall was going to start the season, but it says something that he's in Saint Paul. Clearly the Twins have no doubts about him as a hitter, and having him in AAA from the jump makes it much more likely that we'll see him in MLB at some point this season. 

Glad to see Emma playing already; was a little worried about his sprained ankle and him missing so much spring training. That bat will play. Think we'll need his offense in MLB, but we'll see. Hope he can stay healthy.

Nice job by Festa. I hope he crushes AAA so hard that it becomes very easy for the Twins to deal Paddack. It'll be interesting to see how the sinker plays for him, but it could be a nice weapon to get through hitters more efficiently.

[Trov]

Slim Reaper very efficient.  Pirates have few top hitting prospects at AAA level not too many, but still very good to see him average just over 11 pitches an inning.