Twins Minor League Report (5/25): Shut Out Sunday - a Clean Sweep of the Twins and Their Affiliates

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 29-23
St. Paul Saints: 25-23
Wichita Wind Surge: 23-22
Cedar Rapids Kernels: 25-19
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 20-25

TRANSACTIONS
The Saint Paul Saints made the following roster moves:
Infielder Yunior Severino was activated from the seven-day IL,  and catcher Jair Camargo was place on the 7-day IL with a right forearm sprain.

SAINTS SENTINEL
St. Paul 10, Norfolk 4
Box Score
The Saints and Tides were both on a mission to not lose this series ending game, which Norfolk needed more than the Saints. 

The Saints offense initially was ahead of the Tides in the third inning, 4-1. The inning started with Jose Miranda’s hit-by-pitch, followed by a single and a walk to load the bases. The Saints challenged the strikeout on Anthony Prato but the call was upheld.  Chase McDermott was starting to struggle from the mound and show a little bit of fatigue in the strike zone, and Patrick Winkel took every advantage of the opportunity and banged out a 385 foot grand slam to center field, to give the Saints a 4-1 lead. 

McDermott stayed out through the next inning, and was replaced by Houston Roth, who did a great job of keeping the Saints from making any further progress. 

It was unfortunately not a very good game for Saints starting pitcher Darren McCaughan. McCaughan stayed in for 4 1/3 innings and gave up nine runs on eleven hits. He threw 91 pitches, only 46 of them were strikes, and he only registered four strikeouts during his mound appearance.

The Tides only had one run over two innings and there didn’t appear to be any issues from the mound. But, in the third inning, the Tides had taken command of the game early on and did not let up on McCaughan. They responded to the Saints four runs in the bottom of the third, scoring three in the third and one in the fourth, pulling ahead 5-4. 

The biggest issue for McCaughan was the four home runs that he gave up that had RBI attached to them. The good part about all of loading up the bases, was that McCaughan gave up only one walk in the 25 batters that he faced. By the time McCaughan was pulled, the Tides had nine runs and led the Saints 9-4.

Tyler Beede came in to relieve McCaughan and allowed one inherited runner to score to give the Tides a 10-4 lead. 

The Saints couldn’t even get on base in the remaining innings. They registered nine strikeouts and hit into multiple ground outs, and no walks. Their bats fell flat on the ball for multiple soft hits or popped up for easy outs. 

The Saints brought in Ryan Jensen to replace Beede, and controlled the damage in the later innings not allowing any runs, and struck out four, including winning a pitching challenge from Tides hitter, Coby Mayo, to change the momentum of the game to a slower pace to hopefully give the offense a chance to get something going to close the gap or make a run at tying the game. 

The Tides pitching was just too settled in after the fourth inning and the Saints couldn’t get anything on the board. The line-up continued to struggle with the ability to read the ball, and struck out each player at least once to control the game. 

The Saints bullpen is the real winner of the game here. What started out as a hemorrhage, turned into a slow bleed eventually being cut off at the end and the defense was able to make some plays to keep the Tides from getting more runs on the board. 

The Saints played great in the field, but their bats simply could not battle back to meet the support that the pitching staff needed early on. The Saints tried to rally back in the eighth inning, with walks from Yunior Severino and Ryan Fitzgerald, got the inning started, but was stifled quickly by outs from the next three hitters. 

The loss wasn’t something that would rattle the world of the Saints, they are still above .500 and they are looking good in their division. Everyone gets a chance to reset on Memorial Day and come back rested in Scranton on Tuesday.

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Wichita 2, San Antonio 3
Box Score
A battle of the pitchers took place today in San Antonio Texas. Missions pitcher Matt Waldron came up against Wind Surge pitcher Trent Baker. 

The game was scoreless through four and both pitchers gave up hits, but no runs in the early part of the game. 

The highlight of the game was the appearance by Baker. While he gave up one of the two runs of the game in a rough fourth inning, respectively. Baker fought through six of the nine players in the line-up and the Missions got ahead of Baker. Baker gave up a single, a double and another single to Cody Roberts gave the Mission the go-ahead, scored Romeo Sanabria and got on the board first 1-0. 

The Surge responded and answered with a home run from Aaron Sabato gave them a 2-1 lead, but that was the last time the Surge would see a run through the game. The remaining pitchers for San Antonio allowed three walks, and only one hit over 4 2/3 innings. 

Wind Surge Pitcher Mike Paredes put two on base early in the seventh inning, and San Antonio’s offense kept a steady foot on the gas, putting pressure on the pitching. With two outs and two in scoring position, John Stankiewicz replaced Paredes, but a fielding error advanced everyone and scored Cody Roberts to give San Antonio the lead. 

The Wind Surge simply could not come out of the game with any more production. Both sides really held down their side of the game today, the Surge had two runs on six hits and San Antonio had three runs on six hits. 

The pitching from the Wind Surge kept the numbers low throughout the series, but the lack of offense’s ability to create production, cost them the entire series. They are still hovering above .500, but they need to figure out where the offense is off if they want to stay above .500 as the middle of the season creeps up. 

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 1, Fort Wayne 4
Box Score
All of the Twins affiliates struggled heavily this week, and the Kernels were just the last of them to finish out the evening, leading into Memorial Day. 

There Kernels went into the game with needing a win to hold the series win. They had their Friday game as a double header as a double loss, but had come back in game five of the series on Saturday to win 12-4, but tonight the Fort Wayne jumped out immediately to control the game. It wasn't a high scoring game. But for the Kernels, the series was low scoring outside of their game on Saturday. 

The Fort Wayne pitching was once again on point and the only run scored by the Kernels did not come until the seventh inning. Danny De Andrade walked to start the inning and Jaime Ferrer brought two guys around the bases, scoring one to cut the deficit 4-1, but that was it for the Kernels offense for the rest of night. Fort Wayne kept the Kernels at a season-low two hits, and struck out 12 to keep the team from making anymore headway. 

The Kernels pitching staff as a whole gave up 10 walks. The hardest part of the two hits was the 10 walks gave an advantage to Fort Wayne's offense. Starting pitcher Alejandro Hidalgo has pitched seven games for the Kernels this season over the months of April and May. In April Hidalgo had better starts across all his games. Over his four appearances he gave up nine hits and eight runs, only nine walks and 25 strikeouts. His ERA at the end of April was 4.50, but did bounce up to 6.55 at one point.  

However, In May, he started to struggle. Over his four appearances in May he allowed 19 runs, 10 walks and his strikes decreased to 17. Today's game against Fort Wayne was his best appearance for controlling the earned runs keeping it to only two runs on one hit, but the six walks were a season high. His ERA took a huge hit in May and ended at 8.44. He is throwing more pitches and losing more command in his release point.  He was not the only pitcher that lead way to the loss, but his impact this month has been felt in every series this month. 

The Kernels split this series, which keeps them well above .500 but drops them to 25-19 on the season. They will play their first series with Lake County, who is 24-21. They were Baseball America's "2024 MiLB team of the year" and have one of the best developmental teams in the minors. Fun little fact, Cedar Rapids is fourth in the league in home runs at 34 and Lake Count is tied for first at 37, so that would add some fun to the competition this series. 

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 15, Lakeland 12
Box Score
The Mussels lost their final game of the series to Lakeland, but not without trying from the offense, who showed up too little too late. 

Pitcher Michael Ross has been very dominant this season on the mound, but today, Lakeland got ahead of him in the bottom of the third. Before today’s game, Ross only gave up four runs, three walks and registered 12 strikeouts. This appearance was certainly out of the ordinary for Ross. He struggled with command, and Lakeland won a lot of the battles early on that continued through the game. 

Woody Hadeen got a single to left field to start the inning. Then Bryce Rainer on the very first pitch hit a 100 MPH line drive to right field for an inside-the-park home run, putting them up 2-0 over the Mussels. Ross allowed another one-out single and double, and battled with Stephen Hrustch through six pitches before Hrustch caught the underside of the change-up and launched the ball into center field for another team home run, his first of the season to put Lakeland up 5-0. 

Rayne Doncon hit a solo home run, and his first of the season, deep to left field to get the Mussels on the board, after falling briefly behind the count.

The top of the fifth, the Mussels got another three runs coming within one run of Lakeland, 5-4, but Lakeland got back out in front with another six runs in the fifth and three runs in the sixth. A few misreads and errors from Angel Del Rosario at short gave Lakeland the advantage that advanced two players early and late in the game that certainly affected the run differential. Lakeland led 14-5 in the sixth inning, after four walks and two hit-by-pitches. 

The Mussels closed the gap in the eighth with five runs, and tried to close it out in the ninth, but fell short leaving the tying run on base. 

The Mussels offense was not lacking today. There was a lot of production from the entire line-up and they battled everywhere they could.  Doncon, Jefferson Valladeres, Peyton Carr and Del Rosario got eight of the 12 RBI, a large portion of the offensive support. Del Rosario got his first home run of the season.

Rosario continues to put in the work to continue impacting the team. Since May 17, Rosario has had a run in all but one game, and hits in seven of ten games. His batting average has improved from .176 to .206 in those seven games. 

The downfall of the Mussels this week was not their offense. Today, they got another eight runs over the last half of the game, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the offense of Lakeland. The offense wasn’t shut out, even if they didn’t run up the board, they were able to compete and keep up, but Lakeland was able to get around the Mussels pitching. 

It was a rough week for the Mussels, and they have gone five games under .500, but they have a chance to get back at it on Tuesday at home against Bradenton.

PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Hitter of the Day  
Angel Del Rosario 1-for-3, 2 R, 3 RBI 
Pitcher of the Day 
Trent Baker: 4.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, BB, 4 K 

TUESDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
Cleveland @ Minnesota (6:40 PM CST) - TBD
Saint Paul @ Omaha (6:35 PM CST) - TBD
Tulsa @ Wichita (7:05 PM CST) - TBD
Lake County @ Cedar Rapids (6:35 PM CST) - TBD
Bradenton @ Fort Meyers (6:05 PM CST) - TBD
F-ORI @ F-Twins (10:00 Am 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!