Twins Minor League Report (4/6): Randy Dobnak Shines and the Wind Surge Get Their First Win

[Sherry Cerny]

It was an interesting day for the minor league teams. Sunday marked the first day that all four full-season affiliates played. Read below to see who came out swinging and who needs some more reps. 

Image courtesy of Seth Stohs, Twins Daily (photo of Gabriel Gonzalez)

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 3-6
St. Paul Saints: 2-4
Wichita Wind Surge: 1-2
Cedar Rapids Kernels: 2-1
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 1-2

TRANSACTIONS
On Sunday, the Twins sent Brooks Lee on rehab assignment to Fort Myers Mighty Mussels.  

SAINTS SENTINEL
St. Paul 3, Columbus 2
Box Score
Another pitching duel. Another blown save in the late innings. An extra-innings loss, and the Saints being shut out again in Columbus. 

For a guy who has been pulled up and down in the organization, pitcher Randy Dobnak continued to show this organization why he is an asset and why he deserves a chance to stay. 

Dobnak pitched five scoreless innings and gave up just tone hit. He had three strikeouts and certainly gave his team a chance. Veteran Vince Velasquez started for Columbus and only lasted 2 2/3 innings and gave up the only two runs the Saints got. 

Austin Martin had a single and a walk. Ryan Fitzgerald went 2-for-3 with a walk and a double. 

The Saints struggled with runners in scoring position, going 1-for-10 and left 12 on base. Mike Ford, was walked three times and was responsible for one of the two RBI in combination with Minnesota Twins #2 prospect, Emmanuel Rodriguez.

Rodriguez contribution, as small as it was, produced the most for the Saints. In the third inning his single to left field scored Ryan Fitzgerald to give the Saints the 1-0 lead. It also moved Luke Keaschall to scoring position and soon after, a walk by Ford scored Keaschall. 

The Saints led 2-1 going to the bottom of the ninth and brought in pitcher Anthony Misiewicz to close out the game. Angel Martinez doubled. The next two outs came on a fly out and a whiff. Misiewicz was one out away from closing the game, leaving Martinez on base, but Clippers hitter, Petey Halpin hit a cutter at the bottom of the zone, bringing in Martinez to tie the game 2-2. 

In the top of the tenth, the Saints got hitters on base, but a fly out from Ford stopped the Saints dead in their tracks. Ryan Jenson came in for the bottom of the 10th and gave up a sac bunt and a sac fly and there was another walk-off loss for the Saints. 

 

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Game One: Wichita 0, Springfield 5
Box Score
After falling to Springfield on opening night, 6-2, the Surge struggled to even get on base in game one of the double header on Sunday. 

Minnesota native Aaron Rozek was the starting pitcher. He went four innings before he was pulled. But it wasn’t the fourth inning that gave him trouble. It was the innings prior. In the second inning, Rozek gave up four singles and a double to Springfield putting them up 3-0. Rozek could not seem to stay ahead of the hitters, and while he gained a little more composure, and gave up only one run in the fourth, the damage was done.

The Wind Surge could not catch back up. The Wind Surge had 22 plate appearances, one hit and walked six times, but went scoreless.  Every single bat that found a ball, when it wasn’t a strike found the glove of a defender on Springfield. The Surge struck out seven times. 

Max Rajcic, the pitcher for Springfield, only allowed one hit, a single on a line drive from Rubel Cespedes. The Surge also walked five times but were never able to push a run across home plate. 

Game Two: Wichita 10, Springfield 2
Box Score
The second game had a much larger margin of victory and this time, it went to the Wind Surge. 

In the second inning, Noah Cardenas got the scoring started with an RBI single that scored Rubel Cespedes. Tanner Schobel doubled to drive in Kyler Fedko and Cardenas. The line up continued to rake. 

Before the second inning ended, Kala'i Rosario hit a two-run homer to make it 6-0. Rosario is a solid player and a consistent contributor to the Surge’s runs.

Trent Baker started for the Surge against his former teammates. Baker was one of the Twins minor-league Rule 5 draft picks in December. He worked the first three innings. He gave up no runs on no hits. He had three walks to go with three strikeouts. John Klein came on for his Double-A debut. He was charged with two runs on three hits over two innings. Joel Cesar and John Stankiewicz each worked a scoreless inning. 

In the fourth inning, Ben Ross hit his first home run of the year, a solo shot to centerfield to make it 9-0. 

Springfield tried to threaten with hits in the ninth but were unable to generate any runs, falling (finally) to the Wind Surge 10-2.

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 6, Wisconsin 7
Box Score 
The Kernels lost for the first time this season on Sunday. After a hard fought battle from the line up. the Kernels fell short in the ninth to reclaim the lead and the win.

The Kernels and the Rattlers went head to head throughout the entirety of the game. The Kernels hitters came out hitting. Kaelen Culpepper smashed a triple to center field to lead off the game. Billy Amick who was the best on the field and at the plate all day, doubled on a line drive to left-center to drive in Brandon Winokur, who reached on a fielder's choice. Gabriel Gonzalez switched places with Amick to make it 2-0.  

The lead would not last long. The Rattlers bats were just as hot and ran up the count on Kernels starter Tanner Hall.. They scored three runs before he got his first out.  

The Kernels tied it up 3-3 in the second inning, but the work was far from over. The Kernels were forced into situational hitting for the remainder of the game. Every plate appearance hitters would get positioned for scoring with their first or second hitter. The team saw sac-flies, triples and doubles to put the pressure on Wisconsin. 

Billy Amick was a huge contributor to the Kernels staying ahead throughout the six innings. The third baseman went 3-for-4 with three runs and a walk.

There was also a lot of production from left fielder Gabriel Gonzalez. He went 3-for-5 with three runs and three RBIs. 

The two teams battled though the seventh inning, exchanging the lead eight times. The Rattlers took a 6-5 lead in the bottom of the seventh and never relented, securing another run in the eighth. The Kernels were treated to a solo home run from Gonzalez, but the Rattlers shut down any chance of the Kernels coming back with defensive outs, with astrike out from Kyle Hess to end the game.

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 10, Palm Beach 11
Box Score
The game to close out the series against Palm Beach was intense. A lot of back and forth in the late innings of the game looked to give the Mussels an advantage before falling in the ninth to the Cardinals. 

The first few innings things looked contentious, but the Mussels and Cardinals started trading off home runs in the third and fourth innings. Both Daniel Peña and Dameury Peña’s solo home runs were tight line-drives down the left field line. The Mussels led 2-1 after the four innings. 

Jacob Kisting came out to replace Michael Ross who fought for five innings and only gave up one run. Kisting gave up a walk to Deniel Ortiz, and that was just the start of the chaos. The Cardinals kept a steady rotation on the bases after the steal from Ortiz, with a single, a fielders choice to advance Angel Del Rosario. It wasn’t for lack of defense, the defense was creating plays and getting outs, but Kisting seemed to keep the ball directly in the path of the Cardinals bats allowing them to run up the score 5-2 by the end of the inning and another two in the bottom of the seventh pushed them 7-2. 

The eighth inning was a return on the Cardinals runs. The entire line up took turns getting on base, staying ahead of pitcher Yordy Herrera, who was haunted by the walks he allowed, when Yasser Mercedes got a sac fly that scored Jay Thomasson and Isaac Peña scored to close the gap. A steal from Angel Del Rosario allowed Byron Chourio to score, then scored himself after a throwing error from Josh Kross, got the score up 6-7. 

The walks that the Mussels generated created a nice cushion to help them throughout the game. They had 12 walks in total, and two stolen bases, but it wasn’t enough to over come the bats of the Cardinals.

The Mussels had a 10-7 lead on the Cardinals heading into the ninth after their heavy hitting eighth and ninth to give them the lead. But, errors and a wild pitch would seal the fate of the Mussels, even with pitcher Hunter Hoopes had only one out left. 

Every player saw a base, with the exception of rehabbing shortstop, Brooks Lee, so he will get a pass.

Starting his rehab assignment, Lee struck out twice, but any news is good news for the shortstop who missed opening day for the Twins due to injuries he had from spring training (back). Lee will continue to rehab with the Mussels. 

PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Hitter of the Day - Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids): 3-for-5, 2-2B, HR, 3 RBI
Pitcher of the Day - Randy Dobnak (St. Paul): 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 3 K, 75 pitches, 39 strikes (52.0%)

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on our recently-updated Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did on Sunday.

#1– Walker Jenkins (Wichita) – Game 1 (0-for-4, K)
#2 - Emmanuel Rodriguez (St. Paul) - 1-for-4, BB, RBI, 2 K
#3 - Luke Keaschall (St. Paul) – 0-for-2, BB, R 
#7 - Kaelen Culpepper (Cedar Rapids) - 2-for-3, BB, 3B(1), R, K. 
#8 - Brandon Winokur (Cedar Rapids) - 0-for-5, R, K 
#13 - Kyle DeBarge (Cedar Rapids) - 2-for-5, RBI, K, SB(2) 
#15 - Yasser Mercedes (Fort Myers) -  0-for-3, BB, R, RBI, 2 K 
#17 - Billy Amick (Cedar Rapids) - 3-for-4, BB, 3 R, RBI, 2-2B(3), K 
#18 - Kala’i Rosario (Wichita) - Game 1 (1-for-4, HR(1), R, 2 RBI), Game 2 (0-for-2, BB, K)
#19 - Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids) - 3-for-4, 2-2B(3), HR(1), R, 3 RBI.
#20 - Ricardo Olivar (Wichita) - Game 1 (2-for-5, R, RBI)  

TUESDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
Omaha @ St. Paul (6:37PM  CST) – RHP Zebby Matthews (1-0; 0.00 ERA)
Midland @ Wichita (6:35 PM CST) - TBD
Beloit @ Cedar Rapids (6:35 PM CST) - TBD
Tampa @ Fort Myers (6:05 PM CST) - TBD

Please feel free to ask questions about the teams, the roster, and discuss Sunday’s games, or anything else Twins minor-league related!

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[FlyingFinn]

Looking at the Fort Myers box score, I'm wondering if this has ever happened in baseball before, 3 players with the same name - Pena, Pena and Pena. And two of them hit homers.

[Doctor Gast]

AAA Columbus is a very good team. Saints are too, with great starting pitching & hitters. But it seems that the Saints need better late-innings RPs to keep their early leads. Dobnak had a good game, 

[mikelink45]

Looking at the Saints BP that is not where the Twins BP is going to improve.  We have to shuffle SP into the pen if we are going to get better.  

[LambchoP]

So far Dobnak has looked better than Paddack. Glad Lee is on a rehab assignment, if he's healthy and can start hitting he should be an immediate replacement for Julien or Gasper. If Zebby has another strong outing today I would seriously consider calling him up too.

[D.C Twins]

Free Cespedes!  (I thought I'd pick up from last year given the huge sample size from this year already ;)

[Dman]

Hall seems like the same old Hall from last year. Gives up too many hits and Home runs.  It is an amazing change up but he uses it too much IMO that it eventually gets hit. He needs something more. Not sure what but there is time to find it.

i was low man on Amick but in his small sample size despite having a 40% K rate he also has a 1.200 OPS.  I still have my concerns about the swing and miss and AA will be his true test, but it is nice to see him swinging the bat well.

Gabby looks very dialed in this year.  If he continues to be this focused he might be the best hitter on that team.  Not certain he has the plate discipline to succeed, but his contact skills have been very, very good in this small sample.

DeBarge has great contact skills as well, but he hits it on the ground to the shortstop about 70% of the time.  I don’t see that approach working out well in the long run.  He needs to get the ball in the air somehow. He is tough to K though.

Winokur in the three hole really hurt the team as he didn’t look good at the plate yesterday and killed several rallies. I would move him down the order.  I really like his defense to start the year, but contact hasn’t been great IMO.

Can’t wait until the weather warms up and players get more comfortable.  Windy cold weather makes for mixed results.

[jmlease1]

the cedar rapids group is an interesting bunch this year, 5 position players on the top 20 prospect list, it's going to be very interesting to see who separates themselves this season. Winokur is athletic but streaky. DeBarge might be one of those guys that needed aluminum bats to hit for any power? Culpepper is a guy I like and am excited to have him in a full season of pro ball. GG is off to a nice start and has some things to prove. Amick looks like he knows the strike zone, so be interesting to see if he can make enough contact. (I like him 10% more because he's going by Billy rather than Bill/Will/William; something about it just feels like baseball, lol)