Minor League Report 8/18 Andrew Morris Finally Falters

TRANSACTIONS
No moves were made on Sunday, but Jeff Johnson is reporting that Kaelen Culpepper will join the Cedar Rapids Kernels.

Saints Sentinel
St. Paul 6, Indianapolis 7
Box Score
Andrew Morris: 3 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 3 K
HR: Michael Helman (13), Rylan Bannon (16)
Multi-hit games: Payton Eeles (2-for-4, 2B, 2 R, RBI), Wynton Bernard (2-for-4, 2B, R)

The Saints were walked off on Sunday.

Andrew Morris finally hit a roadblock. Took long enough. The Texas Tech bulldog entered the day with a season ERA of 1.97—23 earned runs across 105 ⅓ innings—and left it with a mark of 2.16. Maybe Mercury was in retrograde. All of the carnage came in a brutal 2nd inning, when a pair of walks portended three earned runs. Morris escaped thereafter, but a mixed bag in the 3rd moved Toby Gardenhire to yank his youngster. Better days are ahead.

St. Paul came to rumble, though, and they didn’t allow their starter to carry the decision for long. Payton Eeles and Michael Helman teamed up to plate two immediate runs, before a 5th-inning knock from Yunior Severino officially let Morris off the hook.

Then: chaos. Indianapolis and St. Paul exchanged runs like kids in the ’70s exchanged baseball cards, as hits and homers abounded, ruining ERAs and soiling pitchers’ spirits. Every Saints reliever not named Hobie Harris exited the game with an earned run against him. 

Matt Gorski ended the misery with a 9th-inning solo shot, sending the Saints home losers for the 63rd time this year.

Indianapolis features a plethora of talent, including former big-leaguers like Billy McKinney, Jake Lamb, and Jack Suwinski; a 1st overall pick in Henry Davis; and Pittsburgh’s 6th-best prospect, Nick Yorke. Yorke pinch-hit and struck out.

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Wichita 3, Arkansas 12
Box Score
Christian MacLeod: 4 ⅓ IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Tanner Schobel (2-for-5, 2B, R), Jake Rucker (2-for-5), Carson McCusker (2-for-4, RBI)

The Wind Surge crumpled and imploded on Sunday.

Christian MacLeod bounced back, though. Following an impromptu Triple-A start, the lefty rejoined Wichita and pitched a tidy (if inefficient) outing. Over 84 pitches, MacLeod elicited 13 outs, striking out four with just one earned run. Even that runner only scored after MacLeod exited the game. For a guy looking to get back on the horse, Sunday’s outing was pretty much perfect.

That’s about when the fun ended, however. Each subsequent reliever allowed an escalating number of runs, starting with two from Mason Fox, and ending with five from John Stankiewicz. The most effective reliever was Jorel Ortega. Jorel Ortega is not a pitcher. 

Wichita’s hitters didn’t have a prayer in matching the scoring. They did fine early, holding a 2-0 lead as late as the beginning of the 5th inning thanks to RBI hits by Carson McCusker and Ricardo Olivar, but they couldn’t match Arkansas’s cartoonish output.

Tanner Schobel is slashing .269/.321/.577 in August.

The Travelers are led by two excellent Mariners prospects: Cole Young and Harry Ford. Ranked 37th and 53rd, respectively, on MLB Pipeline’s top 100, Young singled and walked three times while Ford homered and singled. 

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 4, South Bend 1
Box Score
Jeremy Lee: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Walker Jenkins (2-for-4, R), Jose Salas (2-for-4, 2B, 2 R), Poncho Ruiz (2-for-3, 2B, 2 RBI, BB)

The Kernels cruised to a victory on Sunday.

Two hurlers spearheaded the pitching effort: Jeremy Lee and Spencer Bengard. Lee—a 13th-rounder out of South Alabama—covered the first four frames, holding the Cubs completely at bay while punctuating his outing by K-ing the side in the 4th. Then it was Bengard’s turn. Drafted two rounds later from about six states farther West, the righty matched Lee in effectiveness, covering four more innings with a lone, unearned run against him. Blame Rubel Cespedes.

With some help from the Cubs, the Kernels gave their pitchers enough space for comfort. Poncho Ruiz started the scoring with a clean two-run single in the 2nd, before errors in the 4th and 7th added a pair of bonus scores. Best not to stop your enemy when they are making a mistake.

Nolan Santos nearly closed the game but, following a second error by Cespedes, was pulled in favor of Gabriel Yanez. He struck out his batter in five pitches. It was Cedar Rapids’s 61st win of the season. 

Walker Jenkins collected two hits and stole two bases, his first multi-steal game since Jul. 2 with the Mighty Mussels.

Third baseman Pedro Ramírez slots in as the Cubs’ 11th-best prospect. He walked once in four plate appearances.

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 3, Lakeland 4
Box Score
Ross Dunn: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Jaime Ferrer (2-for-4, 2 2B, R, 2 RBI)

The Mighty Mussels could not complete the comeback on Sunday.

Modesto native Ross Dunn earned the starting nod. A relative elder on the squad—he was drafted all the way back in 2023—the lefty utilized his seasoning and wisdom to nearly strike out a season-high, sending seven Flying Tigers back to the dugout empty-handed. He rebounded nicely from an immediate 2-0 deficit partly caused by a Kyle DeBarge throwing error to allow just two earned runs; his August ERA sits at just 2.08 over 8 ⅔ frames.

Fortunately, Fort Myers’s bats opened the game with a pair of first-inning runs as well. A walk and an error placed two men on, and 2024 4th-rounder Jaime Ferrer cracked the first of his two doubles on the day, scoring both runners on a slicing drive.

The Mighty Mussels fell asleep for the next seven innings, though, as they failed to score again until the 9th. It was too little, too late: Jay Thomason drew the game within one with an RBI knock, but the eventual tying run was thrown out at home attempting to score on the same play. Brandon Winokur lined out to end the game.

Minnesota’s 1st-round pick, Kaelen Culpepper, singled once in four at-bats and stole his second base of the year.

The Flying Tigers are an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, whose talented farm system mostly populates their High-A team. Because of this, not a single player from their MLB Pipeline top 30 played in Sunday’s game. 

TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Jeremy Lee
Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Michael Helman? Jaime Ferrer? Payton Eeles? Take your pick.

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed:
#1– Walker Jenkins (Cedar Rapids) - 2-4, R
#7 – Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids) - 0-4
#9 - Kaelen Culpepper (Fort Myers) - 1-4
#11 - Andrew Morris (St. Paul) - 3 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 3 K
#12 – Brandon Winokur (Fort Myers) - 0-1
#16 - Kyle DeBarge (Fort Myers) - 0-3, BB
#17 – Tanner Schobel (Wichita) - 2-5, 2B, R

MONDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
DSL Twins @ DSL Colorado (10:00 AM) - TBD

Interested in learning more about the Minnesota Twins' top prospects? Check out our comprehensive top prospects list that includes up-to-date stats, articles and videos about every prospect, scouting reports, and more!