Twins Minor League Report (8/3): Louie Varland Just Might Be Back!!

CURRENT W-L Records
Minnesota Twins: 60-48
St. Paul Saints: 54-52
Wichita Wind Surge: 42-59
Cedar Rapids Kernels: 55-44
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 51-46
FCL Twins: 27-31 (season complete)
DSL Twins: 23-19 

TRANSACTIONS
Poncho Ruiz was promoted from Fort Myers to Cedar Rapids. Isaac Pena transferred from Fort Myers to the FCL Twins roster. 

2024 draft picks Kyle DeBarge (Comp), Billy Amick (2nd), Khadim Diaw (3rd) and Jaime Ferrer (4th) have been added to the Fort Myers roster and will be starting their professional careers. 

Cedar Rapids C Dillon Tatum has been released by the Twins organization. The Twins also released RHP Matt Helwig from the Mighty Mussels. 

SAINTS SENTINEL
St. Paul 5, Iowa 1
Box Score
The Saints put a couple of crooked numbers on the scoreboard, and Louie Varland put together arguably the best start of his season, to gain a nice win in Des Moines.

Let’s start with Louie! The St. Paul native tossed six shutout innings. He gave up five hits and one walk, and he had eight strikeouts. All five hits were singles. 70% of his 86 pitches were strikes. It’s really hard to ask for anything more than that.   

With one out in the top of the third inning, Edouard Julien got things started with a single. Yunior Severino followed with a single as well. A wild pitch put runners on second and third. Julien scored on a Jair Camargo ground out. Rylan Bannon walked. That brought Wynton Bernard to the plate and he drove in two runs with a double. 

The score remained 3-0 Saints until the bottom of the sixth inning. With one out, Payton Eeles triples to right and scored on a Dalton Shuffield double. With two outs, Shuffield scored on a single by DaShawn Keirsey that made it 5-0. 

Josh Winder had two strikeouts in a perfect seventh inning. Matt Bowman was charged with an unearned run in the eighth inning. Diego Castillo came in for the ninth. He gave up two hits, but no runs, to end the game with a 5-1 lead. 

The Saints notched eight hits and five walks. DaShawn Keirsey went 2-for-5 with an RBI. He also stole his 25th base of the season. Six other Saints had at least one hit. The two Saints starters that didn’t have a hit? Camargo still had an RBI, and Bannon walked twice.  

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Wichita 1, NW Arkansas 4
Box Score
The Wind Surge got another very solid start from lefty Aaron Rozek on Saturday night, but the offense was just unable to provide the offensive support needed. 

The southpaw from Burnsville gave up two runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings. He had eight strikeouts to go with no walks. Travis Floyd came on and gave up two runs (1 earned) on two hits and a walk in 1 1/3 innings. Kyle Bischoff came on and gave up just a walk and two strikeouts over two scoreless, hitless innings. 

Wichita went scoreless until the eighth inning. Jorel Ortega led off the inning with his eighth home run of the season. 

 Two flyouts and a groundout ended that inning. In the bottom of the ninth, Aaron Sabato walked with two outs. But that was it and the Wind Surge fell 4-1. 

The Wind Surge had just six hits. Along with Ortega’s home run, Ben Ross’s 14th double of the season was the only other extra base hit. 

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 1, Great Lakes 6
Box Score
Not much offense for the Kernels on Saturday night. The team managed just three singles and two (Nick) Lucky walks. In the game. 

Connor Prielipp was back on the mound for his second start with the Kernels. He gave up six runs on five hits and two walks in 2 2/3 innings. He had five strikeouts. Juan Mendez came on with two runners on and allowed both to score before getting the final out of the third inning. C.J. Culpepper came out of the bullpen for his second appearance since returning from the Injured List. Jordan Carr came in and tossed four shutout innings. He gave up three hits, walked none and had four strikeouts. 

That was the story of the game. Great Lakes scored their six runs all in the third inning. The Kernels got on the board with a run in the eighth frame. Nick Lucky scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Walker Jenkins. 

If you want, you can replace the word "Kernels" with the name "Oat Milkers," if you really want to. I couldn't do it. 

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers, St. Lucie  (PPD, rain)
Box Score
Postponed by Rain. Game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Sunday afternoon. Then, hopefully, those 2024 draft picks will be able to make their professional debuts. All for were in in the top six of the Mussels scheduled lineup for Saturday.  

Of note, with Tropical Storm (or maybe Hurricane) Debby's rain hitting Fort Myers starting tonight and through the weekend, it will be quite interesting to see if they play on Sunday, and if so, how?! Sounds like the "hurricane" will make landfall up in the "Big Bend" area of Florida. 

DOMINICAN DAILIES
DSL Twins 3, DSL Tigers 2
Box Score                                                                                                                                                                                                        Down 1-0 after a half-inning, the DSL Twins came to the plate. With one out, Daiber De Los Santos was hit by a pitch and stole second. Eduardo Beltre, the Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Month for July, hit his eighth home run of the short season to give the Twins a 2-1 lead. 

For most of the rest of the game, it was all about pitching. Melvin Rodriguez gave up two runs (1 earned) on six hits and a walk in 4 2/3 innings. He had five strikeouts. Sebastian Pulido gave up three hits over 2 1/3 scoreless innings. He had no walks or strikeouts. Aiberson Ventura pitched a perfect eighth inning to earn the win. 

That’s because, in the bottom of the eighth, Merphy Hernandez started the inning at second base. He reached third base on an interference call on the shortstop on a pickoff attempt to second. Soon after, Hernandez scored the winning run on a wild pitch. Not exactly the most exciting way to win a walkoff. 

The Twins had six hits and two walks, a far cry from Friday’s 21 run, 17 hit, 11 walk (14 wild pitch) performance. Victor Leal and Lis Fragoza each had a single and a walk. 

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Pitcher of the Day – Louie Varland (Saints) - 6.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K.
Hitter of the Day – Eduardo Beltre (DSL Twins) - 1-for-3, HR(8), R, 2 RBI, HBP,  K

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on our recently-updated Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did on Saturday. And, be sure to note the new, updated Top 20 rankings.

#1– Walker Jenkins (Cedar Rapids) – 0-for-3, RBI SF 
#2 – Brooks Lee (Minnesota) – 2-for-4, 2 RBI.
#4 – Luke Keaschall (Wichita) – 1-for-4, 2 K
#7 – Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids) – 1-for-3. 
#19 - C.J. Culpepper (Cedar Rapids) - 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K. 28 pitches, 18 strikes (64.3%)
#20 – Connor Prielipp (Cedar Rapids) – 2.2 IP, 5 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 5 K. 45 pitches, 31 strikes. (68.9%) 

SUNDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
St. Paul @ Iowa (1:08 PM CST) – RHP Caleb Boushley, 4.47 ERA)
NW Arkansas @ Wichita (1:05 PM CST) – RHP Travis Adams (4-6, 4.83 ERA)
Great Lakes @ Cedar Rapids (1:05 PM CST) – RHP Ty Langenberg (3-0, 4.70 ERA)
St. Lucie @ Ft. Myers (DH @ 11:05 AM CST) – LHP Cesar Lares (2-3, 4.40 ERA), RHP Charlee Soto (0-4, 5.64 ERA)

Please feel free to ask questions and discuss Saturday’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!