Twins Minor League Report (7/9): Carson McCusker, Billy Amick Spearhead Wins with Homers

[Matt Braun]

Image courtesy of Rob Thompson (photo of Carson McCusker)

TRANSACTIONS
C Jeferson Morales released (St. Paul)
LHP Anthony Misiewicz selected by Twins

Saints Sentinel
St. Paul 5, Iowa 3
Box Score
José Ureña: 2 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K
HR: Carson McCusker (17)
Multi-hit games: Edouard Julien (3-for-4, 2B, R)

St. Paul clawed back from a three-run deficit to win on Wednesday.

Early pitching returns were fraught and poor; José Ureña was ambushed for two first-inning runs, while Erasmo Ramírez allowed his first score as a Saint. What could have easily spiraled into a disaster suddenly morphed into a fostered and successful pitching effort thanks to Cory Lewis and Cody Laweryson. 

The former hurler walked four, but whiffed seven. Effectively wild? The Cubs couldn’t scratch a hit off him across 76 pitches. It was his first scoreless outing since April 2nd. The latter pitcher delivered the final two frames with signature nonchalance.

Entering the eighth down 3-2, the Saints had a chance to alter their luck. Jonah Bride walked. Edouard Julien singled. Standing at the plate with his eye on damage, Carson McCusker received a 93 MPH fastball down the middle. What a gift. What a splendid gift. The right-handed slugger swung and belted the offering 431 feet out to dead-center to vault St. Paul into the lead.

Saints pitching struck out 16 batters on Wednesday.

43rd-overall ranked prospect Owen Caissie DH’d for the Cubs, walking twice in five plate appearances. 

Wind Surge Wisdom
Wichita 4, San Antonio 6
Box Score
Connor Prielipp: 3 ⅔ IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K
HR: Nate Baez (3)
Multi-hit games: Kaelen Culpepper (2-for-3, 2B, R, BB), Nate Baez (2-for-4, HR, R, 2 RBI)

I don’t have anything clever. The Wind Surge lost on Wednesday.

Kaelen Culpepper is a baseball-hitting force the greatness of which is indescribable by our limited human lexicon. He’s batting .433 in July with more walks than strikeouts. Sure. He’s batting .349 since his promotion to Wichita. Sure. At this point, they should probably just skip formalities and send him to first base when he steps to the plate.

Not too far behind him is Gabriel Gonzalez, who’s hitting a relatively measly .393 in July, but with a .553 OBP. That mark is at .423 for the season. That’s two legitimate contact superstars on the same team. 

The one who brought the thump on Wednesday, yet, was Nate Baez, who launched his sixth homer of the season in the fifth. 

Connor Prielipp has pitched 43 2/3 innings in 2025, 20 2/3 more than his previous season high. 

San Diego Padres’ 16th-ranked prospect Romeo Sanabria pinch-ran and later struck out.

Kernels Nuggets
Cedar Rapids 10, Peoria 5
Box Score
Tanner Hall: 3 IP, 3 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 0 K
HR: Billy Amick (2)
Multi-hit games: Billy Amick (2-for-4, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI, 2 BB), Danny De Andrade (3-for-6, 3B, R, 4 RBI), Poncho Ruiz (2-for-3, 2B, 2 R, 2 BB), Misael Urbina (2-for-5, 2B, 3 RBI), Caden Kendle (2-for-5, 2B, R), Justin Connell (2-for-4, 2B, 3 R, BB)

The Kernels scored 10 unanswered runs to win on Wednesday. 

For the second time in three starts, Tanner Hall went three innings while allowing five runs. Repetition may be inevitable in human life, but the 2023 4th-rounder may need to look elsewhere to satisfy his pattern-seeking brain.

Fortunately, Cedar Rapids’ bats were revved and ready to attack the ball with gusto. They woke up from a four-inning slumber to plate a four-piece in the fifth, with a three-run homer by Billy Amick serving as the frame’s big blast; Misael Urbina concluded events with a run-scoring single.

Unsatisfied, they returned the next inning with an even stronger offensive; this time plating five in a fate-altering onslaught. Caden Kendle began action with a double, and a pair of walks loaded the bases for Danny De Andrade. An ordinary, unclever hitter would have selected something boring—perhaps a run-of-the-mill single—to complete the job. De Andrade doesn’t live like that. He clears the bases with triples. At least, he did so this time. 

Urbina, whose nickname should be “cleanup,” added a two-run double in the sixth, and one final RBI knock by De Andrade in the seventh capped the scoring for the night. 

The Chiefs were so stunned, they could do nothing to fight back: Jacob Kisting, Logan Whitaker, Jeremy Lee, and Paulshawn Pasqualotto held them scoreless until the game reached its inevitable ending.

The Chiefs are an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Their best prospect in the game—the 24th team-ranked and tremendously named Travis Honeyman—went 0-2, 2 BB.

Mussel Matters
Fort Myers 2, Clearwater 3
Box Score 
Michael Carpenter: 2 ⅔ IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Dameury Pena (2-for-4, 2B, R, RBI, BB)

The Mighty Mussels lost late on Wednesday. 

Michael Carpenter was not the sharpest. Things were going right, then they took a left, as a scoreless first portended a laborious second, with a pair of runs scoring against the southpaw. 

That only tied the score, though; a Daniel Pena sacrifice fly and Dameury Pena RBI single gave Fort Myers two runs of their own. They would never score again. The next seven frames were fruitless, despite consistent threats.

Despite Dylan Questad’s excellent 4 ⅓ inning effort in relief, he surrendered a run in the eighth, suffering a hard-luck loss. 

Fort Myers’ .635 team OPS is the worst in the Florida State League. 

MLB.com’s 63rd-ranked overall prospect, catcher Eduardo Tait, singled once in four at-bats. 

TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Cory Lewis
Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Billy Amick

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed:
#1 – Walker Jenkins (Wichita) - 0-3, R, K
#3 – Emmanuel Rodriguez (St. Paul) - 0-3, R, RBI, BB, K
#4 – Kaelen Culpepper (Wichita) - 2-3, 2B, R, BB
#5 – Connor Prielipp (Wichita) - 3 ⅔ IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K
#9 – Brandon Winokur (Cedar Rapids) - 1-5, 3 K
#10 – Kyle DeBarge (Cedar Rapids) - 1-6, R
#12 – Billy Amick (Cedar Rapids) - 2-4, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI, 2 BB
#13 – Gabriel Gonzalez (Wichita) - 1-3, 2B, R, RBI, BB, 2 K
#17 – Cory Lewis (St. Paul) - 4 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 7 K
#19 – Danny De Andrade (Cedar Rapids) - 3-6, 3B, R, 4 RBI
#20 – Payton Eeles (St. Paul) - 0-3, BB, K

THURSDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
Iowa @ St. Paul (7:07 PM) - RHP Marco Raya
San Antonio @ Wichita (7:05 PM) - RHP Darren Bowen
Cedar Rapids @ Peoria (6:35 PM) - RHP Jose Olivares
Fort Myers @ Clearwater (5:30 PM) - RHP Eli Jones
FCL Twins @ FCL Rays (9:00 AM, Completion of July 8 Game) - TBD
FCL Rays @ FCL Twins (11:00 AM) - TBD
DSL Rangers Red @ DSL Twins (10:00 AM) - TBD

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[FlyingFinn]

Julien really having some great games but he needs to consistently have them and then either have the Twins fall out of the race or have injuries to get back to bigs this year. So I'm not really hoping he makes it back for now.

[Yoke]

Jenkins almost had a homer, too. Hit one about as far as possible in that park, just caught by the fence.

 

Lots of fun to watch the Wichita lineup.

[tony&rodney]

McCusker went into a total dive after the Twins sent him back to St. Paul. It was, undoubtedly, a humbling experience. Nevertheless, Carson remains a force that the Saints look to for runs. Watching McCusker, he has problems laying off some sliders and  has some swing and miss. Pitchers are very careful though with him, more so than any other batter I have seen in minor league games. A slight issue is that  it seems the strike zone is a couple inches lower and a couple more inches higher for McCusker. He already has the largest zone in baseball. I also cannot remember him challenging a call, although he may have.

It was wonderful watching him crank out that missile last night and run the bases in such an old fashioned manner. The Saints were lost against the Iowa pitchers and then .... victory in one swing. Fun player to watch.

[Trov]

Nice to see the guys in AA pushing.  Culpepper may be forcing a move to AAA by end of season and be a guy for early call up next year at this rate.  Gonzalez if he can keep on this path will be a huge win in the Polanco trade. 

[jmlease1]

Kaelen & Gabby just keep rolling in Wichita! Really fun to see. It's going to be hard to keep them from getting a look in AAA this season at this rate, and I love seeing prospects push for advancement by being awesome.

Nice day from Billy Amick; glad to see he's looking healthy again and maybe finding a groove. he was really hot out the gate before going down with an injury, and it's taken him a while to get back on the field and get it going again, but he's off to a nice start in July. It'll be interesting to see if he can stick at 3B, but I think it's smart to have him splitting time at 1B, especially with all the infield talent we still have a Cedar Rapids.

De Andrade is having a solid bounce back season after a bit of a lost year with injuries. I suspect we'd be talking about him a bit more if it wasn't for guys like Culpepper and DeBarge getting so much (deserved) attention. He's playing some SS again, and he's shown solid pop in his bat. But he's been inconsistent at the plate: great april, not so good may. great june, wobbled in july so far. I think we're seeing why he didn't get an early promotion, and he's still very young; he may be more experienced as a professional, but he's a full year younger than Culpepper.

[LambchoP]

That AA lineup is looking pretty legit lately. Jenkins, Culpeper, Gonzalez, Rosario and Fedko. It's too bad we don't have any pitchers having a successful season like a few of our hitters are having.....

[stringer bell]

45 minutes ago, LambchoP said:

That AA lineup is looking pretty legit lately. Jenkins, Culpeper, Gonzalez, Rosario and Fedko. It's too bad we don't have any pitchers having a successful season like a few of our hitters are having.....

One thing I've noticed is that Rosario is stealing a bunch of bases. I thought he was another slow guy who could barely handle a corner outfield spot, but based on his base stealing, he must have decent wheels.

Gonzalez and Culpepper both would be advancing two levels to get to St. Paul. Possible, but not likely IMHO. Their performance in Wichita has been as good or better than what they produced at Cedar Rapids. 

[Mike Sixel]

11 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

One thing I've noticed is that Rosario is stealing a bunch of bases. I thought he was another slow guy who could barely handle a corner outfield spot, but based on his base stealing, he must have decent wheels.

Gonzalez and Culpepper both would be advancing two levels to get to St. Paul. Possible, but not likely IMHO. Their performance in Wichita has been as good or better than what they produced at Cedar Rapids. 

Other teams advance top prospects. Sometimes even this team. Culpeper is a college guy, it's hard to see any reason not to move him up if he's still doing this in August. 

[Guest]

Wasn't Jeferson Morales crowned the King of Ft. Myers or something this year by TD?