Twins Minor League Report (8/22): DaShawn Keirsey Continues to Make his Case, Jeferson Morales Does It All for Wichita

Just three games, but a ton of action in the Twins minor leagues on Wednesday night. 

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 71-56
St. Paul Saints: 58-64
Wichita Wind Surge: 50-67
Cedar Rapids Kernels: 61-54
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 61-51
FCL Twins: 27-31 (season complete)
DSL Twins: 30-25 (season complete) 

TRANSACTIONS
RHP Jacob King was removed from the IL and assigned to the FCL Twins from the Mighty Mussels. 

Wichita placed RHP Miguel Rodriguez on the 7-Day Injured List and activated RHP Cody Laweryson from the Development List. 

SAINTS SENTINEL
St. Paul 8, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 7 
Box Score
Last night, the Saints ended their 10-game losing streak. On Thursday night, they won their second straight one-run game. 

It didn’t look great early when Scranton put up four runs in the top of the first inning. But the Saints came back with two in the bottom half of the inning. Caleb Boushley made the start for the Saints. He gave up five runs in the first two innings. Overall, he went 5 2/3 innings and gave up six runs on eight hits and four walks. He struck out three batters. 

Zack Weiss came on and allowed an inherited runner to score. He gave up three hits in 1 1/3 innings. He had two strikeouts. Giovanny Gallegos gave up a hit and issued a walk in a scoreless eighth inning. Scott Blewett gave up a ninth-inning run on two hits but earned his first Save of the season.

After the rough top of the first inning, it was nice for the Saints to grab two runs in the bottom of the first. With one out, Diego A. Castillo walked. DaShawn Keirsey followed with his 14th home run of the season. (Keirsey also stole his 30th base of the season.) 

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Jair Camargo led off with his 10th homer of the season. 

Castillo walked to lead off the bottom of the fifth inning. Keirsey followed with a single. Yunior Severino then launched his 19th homer of the season to turn a two-run deficit into a one-run lead, 6-5. 

The RailRiders tied the game in the top of the sixth inning. With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Payton Eeles singled and stole second base. Castillo drove him in with a single to center to put the Saints back ahead, 7-6. 

The bottom of the seventh inning started with a Keirsey triple, his sixth. With one out, Michael Helman drove him in with a sacrifice fly to make it 8-6. 

Scranton had runners on second and third with one out in the eighth and didn’t score. They scored one in the ninth on a pair of doubles, and a hit batter put two runners on, but Blewett got a strikeout to end the game. 

DaShawn Keirsey went 4-for-4 with two singles, his sixth triple, his 14th home run, and his 30th stolen bases. The speedy center fielder just continues to fill out a box score and a stat line fully. 

Diego A. Castillo went 1-for-2 with two walks. Anthony Prato had a single and a walk.     

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Wichita 4, Midland 3 (11 innings)
Box Score
A night after being walked off in the 11th inning, the Wind Surge played another 11 innings. This time, they left the field with a one-run win. If you’re going to play a game in 103 degree-weather, you might as well get a win!  

The game was scoreless until the top of the fourth when the Surge got on the board first. Jeferson Morales hit his ninth home run of the season. 

Morales led off the top of the sixth inning with a single. Carson McCusker drove him in with his 14th home run of the season to give the Surge a 3-0 lead. 

Travis Adams was absolutely brilliant in this game. The starter worked the first six innings. He gave up no runs on one hit. He had just one walk, hit two batters, and struck out 10 batters. It is the second time in his pro career that he has reached double digit strikeouts. On August 23, 2022, he tossed five innings for the Kernels and had 11 strikeouts with just one walk. 

Mason Fox came in for the seventh inning and gave up two runs on three hits. John Stankiewicz gave up the tying run on three hits in his two innings. 

The game was tied 3-3 going to extra innings. Both teams went scoreless in the 10th inning. 

The 11th inning began with Morales on second base. Two outs later, he was still standing in the same spot. A wild pitch moved him to third base, and Andrew Cossetti came through with the big two-out RBI single to make it 4-3. 

Ricardo Velez worked both extra frames. In the 10th inning, he threw two wild pitches and somehow got three outs without giving up a run. In the 11th, a fielding error put runners on first and third with nobody out. However, a line drive to left was caught by Morales, the former catcher, who came up with a strong, accurate throw home to get the second out and maintain the lead. It was a huge play because it was followed by a single. But Velez got a strikeout to end the game and earn his first Double-A win. 

Morales played hero in the field and went 3-for-5 with his ninth home run and three runs scored. McCusker went 2-for-4 with a walk and his 14th homer. Dalton Shuffield went 2-for-5 and stole his fifth base. 

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 4, Dayton 5 
Box Score
Ty Langenberg pitched a scoreless first inning for the Kernels on Thursday night. He then had to do a bit of work. He gave up one run in each of the next four innings. But overall, he gave up four runs on seven hits (2 solo homers) in five innings. He had five strikeouts without issuing a walk. 

The Kernels on the other hand were kept scoreless through five innings, but they got on the board in the top of the sixth inning. Misael Urbina led off with a walk. Agustin Ruiz singled to right. He and Urbina each moved up an extra base on an error. Two outs later, they were still standing in scoring position. Walker Jenkins came up and drilled a hard single to right, off the first baseman’s glove, that drove in both runs.  

Rafael Marcano came in and struck out three batters over two scoreless, one-hit innings. 

In the top of the eighth inning, Kaelen Culpepper reached on a one-out single. Jenkins followed with a single. After a pitching change, Gabriel Gonzalez’s 17th double drove in the Twins two most-recent top draft picks and tied the game at 4-4.

Nolan Santos came in for the eighth inning and gave up two hits but no runs. The Kernels went scoreless in the top of the ninth. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Santos issued a walk. A sacrifice bunt advanced the runner to second, and a wild pitch moved him to third. Hector Rodriguez followed with a single, and the Kernels lost another one-run game.  

Cedar Rapids had just six hits, and Walker Jenkins had two of them. Gonzalez had the lone extra base hits. 

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers, Tampa (Rained Out)
Box Score
Fort Myers game in Tampa was canceled due to bad weather. It will not be made up. They had an already-scheduled day off on Friday and a doubleheader on Saturday. 

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Pitcher of the Day – Travis Adams (Wichita) - 6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 HBP, 10 K, 91 pitches, 62 strikes (68.1%).
Hitter of the Day – DaShawn Keirsey (St. Paul) - 4-for-4, 3B(6), HR(14), 3 R, 2 RBI, SB(30).  

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

#1– Walker Jenkins (Cedar Rapids) – 2-for-4, R, 2 RBI, K. 
#7 – Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids) – 1-for-4, 2B(17), 2 RBI, 2 K.   
#9 - Kaelen Culpepper (Cedar Rapids) - 1-for-4, R. 
#17 - Tanner Schobel (Wichita) – 0-for-5, K.

FRIDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
Scranton/Wilkes Barre @ St. Paul (7:07 PM CST) – RHP Randy Dobnak (9-6, 3.56 ERA)
Wichita @ Midland (7:00 PM CST) – RHP Marco Raya (1-3, 4.76 ERA) 
Cedar Rapids @ Dayton (6:05 PM CST) – RHP John Klein (8-2, 4.41 ERA)
Ft. Myers @ Tampa – No Game Friday, Doubleheader on Saturday.

Please feel free to ask questions and discuss Thursday’s games!

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!