Seth Stohs

I don't think he'll be in Cedar Rapids more than another start or two, obviously depending on how it goes.

It was an interesting Friday night in the Twins organization. The big league club got a great start from Kyle Gibson to beat the White Sox. The Lookouts’ bats got rolling. The Miracle and Kernels’ bats did not get going. In fact, one of those teams was involved in a no-hitter. As important to the Twins as anything, Byron Buxton remained on fire, collecting three more hits in the game. Continue reading below to find out everything that happened in the organization on Friday.(NOTE - The Weekly Leaderboard will return next week. In the next days, we'll be posting our Twins Daily Minor League Hitter, Starting Pitcher and Relief Pitcher of the Month of April.) TRANSACTIONS There were several transactions in the Minnesota Twins minor leagues on Friday, but the biggest came following the Twins 1-0 win over the Chicago White Sox. Ricky Nolasco is scheduled to start on Saturday, so he and Brian Duensing were reinstated from the disabled list. To make room, the Twins optioned lefties Tommy Milone and Caleb Thielbar. Earlier in the day, the Twins had played RHP Tim Stauffer on the disabled list with a strained right intercostal muscle. He was replaced by Ryan Pressly. Tim Shibuya was promoted from Ft. Myers to Chattanooga to take the roster spot vacated by the suspended Adrian Salcedo. Outfielder Zach Granite was promoted to the Miracle. J.J. Fernandez was activated from the disabled list and back in the Kernels lineup. Keep up with the Twins minor league transactions here. RED WINGS REPORT Rochester 3, Norfolk 4 Box Score Lefty Pat Dean, who posted a 0.90 ERA in three April starts, was back on the mound for the Red Wings on this night. He gave up a run in the first inning, but then he put up zeroes until the sixth inning. In all, he gave up four earned runs on 11 hits in 7.1 innings. He walked one and struck out one. A.J. Achter came in with a runner on and one out in the eighth inning, but he got a double play to get out of that inning and then worked a quiet ninth inning. He struck out two in 1.2 scoreless innings. Unfortunately, the Red Wings were not able to muster enough offense to win this one and fell 4-3. Josmil Pinto hit his second home run of the season, a two-run shot. The other run scored on a wild pitch. The Red Wings had just five hits in the game. The only other extra base hit was Danny Ortiz’s third double. CHATTANOOGA CHATTER Chattanooga 7, Jacksonville 3 Box Score Let’s start out with this… Byron Buxton is Back!! The talented outfielder struggled mightily to start the season .Through April 22, 50 at-bats, he was hitting just .180. He had nine hits and four of them came in just one game. He had four walks to go with 14 strikeouts. Manager Doug Mientkiewicz gave him the next two games off to clear his head. On Friday night, Buxton went 3-4 with a double. In the seven games since he sat, Buxton has gone 11-26 (.408) with a double, triple and a home run. As important, in those seven games, he has six walks and just one strikeout. Sure, it’s just a week, but it’s certainly encouraging. His batting average is up to .263 for the season. The Lookouts had several bats that came to play on this night. Jorge Polanco went 2-4 with his fourth double. Travis Harrison went 2-4 with his seventh double. Adam Brett Walker was also 2-4. Dalton Hicks and Stuart Turner each doubled. Levi Michael added a triple. Tyler Duffey made the start for the team. The right-hander went the first seven innings. He gave up three runs on just four hits. He walked two and struck out four. Tim Shibuya made his first Double-A appearance after a strong April in Ft. Myers. He walked one and struck out three over two, one-hit innings. MIRACLE MATTERS Ft. Myers 1, Charlotte 2 Box Score The positive… Zach Granite made his Florida State debut. He left Cedar Rapids with a ten-game hitting streak. He had a single in the game to extend the now two-league, two-team streak. Niko Goodrum went 2-2 with two walks. Alex Swim went 2-3 with a walk. He scored the team’s lone run. After he doubled, a Jason Kanzler singled plated him. That was it for the offense. Ethan Mildren falls to 0-3 despite giving up just two runs over five innings. He gave up seven hits, walked two and struck out two. Brandon Peterson continued his dominance of the Florida State League. He struck out four in two scoreless innings. He walked one. Brian Gilbert struck out two and walked one in a scoreless frame. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 0, Clinton 2 Box Score Daniel Missaki came into this game with an 0-1 record, a 4.84 ERA and 27 hits allowed in 22.1 innings pitched. The 19-year-old found a way to keep the Kernels’ bats quiet, even hitless through seven innings. The only blemish was a two-out walk to Trey Vavra in the seventh inning. He was replaced in the eighth inning by Kody Kerski who threw a 1-2-3 inning. Troy Scott came on for the ninth inning. He walked Tanner English with two outs, but he struck out Nick Gordon to end the game and complete the no-hitter. The Kernels struck out 10 times. Clinton, an affiliate of the Seattle Mariners, found a way to keep Stephen Gonsalves from beating them. All it took was throwing a no-hitter against his team. I wonder if other teams will try that strategy. The Kernels have scored a total of just seven runs over their last seven games. Gonsalves was good. The lefty gave up two runs on five hits, a walk and a hit batter. He struck out eight. One of the hits was a solo homer off the bat of left fielder Estarlyn Morales. Mike Theofanopoulos struck out one over the final two innings without allowing a base runner. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Stephen Gonsalves, Cedar Rapids Kernels Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Byron Buxton, Chattanooga Lookouts SATURDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Norfolk @ Rochester (12:35 CST) – LHP Taylor Rogers Jacksonville @ Chattanooga (6:15 CST) – RHP J.O. Berrios Ft. Myers @ Charlotte (5:30 CST) – RHP Ryan Eades Clinton @ Cedar Rapids (6:35 CST) – RHP Michael Cederoth Please feel free to ask any questions and discuss the Friday games. Click here to view the article

It's all yours on Thursday's report, Eric!! Ha!

That's such a tough thing to know... is he on a hot streak (he's done that before), or have his alterations physically, mentally, mechanically started to take and he can carry it to the big leagues. Obviously there's no way to know that officially, but the Twins should be cautious... That said, he's earning his way up, and that's great to see!

Yeah, I updated the Probable Starters earlier this mornign when I heard that it would be Curtiss (And Hu for Ft. Myers).

Be sure to update your Adopt-A-Prospect profiles each week. Again, be sure to look for newspaper articles, etc. And again, if anyone would like to help start threads for the other Twins minor leaguers, that would be a huge help. They all deserve to be recognized.

I would say that that would be a good thing! We can certainly hope for that!

He is a good baseball player. He's big and very strong. He has a lot of power, though the concern with him is mostly about his ability to catch up to a good fastball. He's also really good at first base.

Jinx, SDBuhr!

I believe he is scheduled to start on Friday. My guess is that they'll take John Curtiss off of the DL and have him start tonight, but I haven't been able to confirm that yet.

In June of 2010, the Minnesota Twins used their 11th round draft pick to select a first baseman from Oakmont High School in Roseville, California, Tyler Kuresa. The two sides negotiated right up until the deadline. Reports are that the Twins threw a lot of money at Kuresa, but he chose to go to college. Four years later, the Twins drafted him again, this time in the 16th round out of UC-Santa Barbara. This time, he signed very quickly with the Twins and began his professional career. Learn much more about Tyler Kuresa, the first baseman for the Cedar Rapids Kernels.The decision to tell the Minnesota Twins five years ago that he was not going to accept their offer and instead go to college was a difficult one. However, he was and remains fully confident that it was the right decision for him. He said, “I was so young at the time. I was 17. I didn’t really know what I wanted.” He did know one thing he wanted, and that was an education. It was important to him and to his family. Kuresa explained, “At the end of the day, I just decided that getting an education was the best route for me. Especially given my family situation. I’m a first-generation America. My dad came from Samoa. He came from Samoa to get an education here,” he continued, “My mom and dad moved here so we could all get an education so that definitely factored in.” Kuresa went to the University of Oregon where he played as a freshman in 2011. He made the decision to transfer to UC-Santa Barbara where he had to sit out the 2012 season. In 2013, he hit .296/.359/.455 (.814) with 16 doubles, three triples and five home runs. The Atlanta Braves used their 14th round pick on him, but he returned to Santa Barbara for another season. In 2014, he hit .287/.372/.495 (.867) with 13 doubles, a triple and nine home runs. “Transferring to UC-Santa Barbara was a major transition, positively in my life, for my career and for my personal life. We made a regional my junior year. It was the first time that Santa Barbara had been to a regional in twelve years. Now they’re on the right track. I think they’re #10 in the country right now. Just taking that program and seeing what Andrew Checketts was able to do with that program in such a short time. I was happy to be a part of it.” However, he also was able to follow through on his education and graduate. “I went into college wanting to study Communications, but the Communications program at Santa Barbara was so time consuming that I really couldn’t do it with baseball. So, I switched majors to Public Policy Analysis which I really ended up liking a lot because my dad was really into politics and so am I, so it’s definitely an interesting major. I don’t know if it’ll ever translate to a profession, but a degree from Santana Barbara definitely looks nice.” After being drafted and signed by the Twins, Kuresa spent last summer mashing for the Elizabethton Twins. He hit .298/.381/.478 (.859) with 14 doubles, five home runs and 44 RBI in 46 games. He played well, but the transition to pro baseball did take a little getting used to. “Just playing every day. College is definitely a grind because you play four days a week, but then you have to come back and practice the other days, which is really hard. Here you’re playing every day. Every day matters. You really have to keep the focus every day. You can’t slack off here. You’ll get exposed out there. You owe it to the fans every single night to do your best.” So far this season at Cedar Rapids, he is hitting .286/.295/.429 (.724) with three doubles and a home run. He is a very hard worker. When I was in Cedar Rapids a couple of weeks ago, I watched the Kernels take batting practice each day. Following batting practice, I went under the stadium and talked with several players and the coaching staff. I saw Kuresa walk out of the locker room and to the batting cage that is under the stadium. He hit an entire bucket of balls off of the tee, likely 100 extra swings before the game. In his first at-bat in the game, he crushed a pitch well over the wall in right field. Asked what he was looking for on the pitch, he gave a tremendous answer showing what goes through the mind of a good hitter during an at-bat. “He had thrown me an 0-0 changeup. They had thrown me consecutive changeups the night before so it was kind of in the back of my mind that another change up might be coming. That’s what it was and I was able to get the barrel on it.” Why the extra tee work? “It’s still so early in the season that you’re just trying to get your legs under you in the box, trying to see the ball. I just wasn’t seeing it very well the day before. So sometimes when you get on the tee and you polish off some of the mechanical issues that you may be having, it helps you see the ball a little bit better.” What about seeing the extra work pay off in the game? Kuresa’s response was tremendous, “Yeah, definitely (it feels good). But putting the extra work in, it’s all a process. Sometimes it’s not going to show up on the field. Sometimes you’re going to have a really great BP and put in a lot of extra work and you’re not going to play well on the field. Sometimes you’ll play well in the field and not do well in batting practice, so it’s just how it goes sometimes.” That response is a good illustration of why it is so important to look beyond the statistics at these lower levels, especially early in the season when they’re adjusting to a new level, playing in cold weather conditions and adjusting to being a professional. His hitting coach, Tommy Watkins, continues to work with Kuresa. Of the burly first baseman, he said, “To start, he’s a good kid and works really hard. With him, we’re just trying to work to stay down on his swing. He likes to come up too soon. He lets the ball get too deep sometimes. So, we’re trying to get the ball out front a little bit, the head out.” Watkins had a long professional career that culminated with his one promotion to the big leagues late in the 2007 season. Kuresa’s Elizabethton coaches, manager Ray Smith and hitting coach Jeff Reed, both spent time in the big leagues. Kuresa said, “They’ve been there. It’s definitely really nice to work with people every day who have been where you want to go and know what it takes to get there. They’ve been where you are, and they’ve been through the grind, and they know exactly where you’re going to which is really nice, really comforting to know.” Kuresa, with his size and strength plays first base, but he doesn’t want to just get by on defense. He takes a lot of pride in his glove work. “I’ve always taken a lot of pride in playing first base well. I don’t consider myself just a big guy that they throw over there. I take a lot of pride in it. I try to help my team win on the defensive side of the ball, and then anything I can do to contribute on the offensive side of the ball is a bonus.” So, as Tyler Kuresa enters his first full season as a professional baseball player, what kind of goals does he have? “I’m not much of a numbers guy. I just like to, every night I have a set number of quality at bats that I’d like to have. I usually like to have two or three quality at-bats a night.” He continued, as you would expect, talking about team goals. “I really just want to win a championship. That’s all I want to do. Some guys say that and they don’t really mean it, but this is a special team. We’re going to lose guys throughout the season and get guys in. I’d really like to be the last team standing at the end.” Oh, and he made one guarantee too. “And, I can promise you that I’ll have at least one home run at the end of the year.” Tyler Kuresa is a bright, young ball player who is enjoying his time with the Cedar Rapids Kernels. He is playing first base against right-handers at this point. He is grateful for this opportunity to play in the Twins organization. “I’m definitely glad that the Twins picked me up again. I get a second chance with them.” Click here to view the article

That would be my guess... I'll agree with TRex on this one.

Only in 'bullpen' games like the other day.

Great point, although it'd be interesting to see what kind of contact he's getting too. But you're right, that's not a sustainable BABIP.

I like Trey too, but I'd have to ask, based on what?

Regarding Buxton, again, just watching his plate appearances the last couple of nights, he definitely is getting closer. He has walked a bunch, seems to be seeing the ball better. he came up with the bases loaded and two outs once and ripped a line drive that the shortstop jumped for and caught, but that could have been a bases-clearing triple. he was all over it. So, I think he's getting close.

But what if I made a decision NOT to designate which Hicks just to create more curiosity so people would jump in to the article? Ha! it's a good point.

I watched most of the game, and I saw at least 3 of his plate appearances (all walks)... he was being thrown a lot of curveball/sliders and he was watching them. Some of them looked pretty good, nice break, etc. The bat wasn't just on his shoulder, and a couple of them were longer, 7-8 pitch plate appearances. It was encouraging.

Granite's 22, and he's only in Cedar Rapids because he missed significant time in 2014 with injury. He, in my opinion, will be the first position player promoted to Ft. Myers, and he'd be an ideal leadoff guy there.

I didn't watch the Meyer start. The Twins have a rule, one many teams follow, that if a pitcher throws 30+ pitches in an inning, he's done. Meyer was up against that a few times last year, and maybe already this year. And also, he gave up nine hits and 5 runs in 4 innings. It was probably the right decision. I'm encouraged by the ZERO walks. When pitchers are as wild as Meyer was in his first two starts, I've seen the Twins pitching coaches basically encourage them to just throw the ball down the middle. Throw strikes. Once they regain that control, then mix it up again more and more. But they have to regain the confidence, and with Meyer, regain the confidence that his 'stuff' is good enough as long as he doesn't compound the issues with free passes.

Things have been tough for the Twins minor league affiliates in the last week or so. That said, there are still plenty of positives to find, even in some of the frustrations. There are a couple of extended hitting streak. There were several home runs on Tuesday. There was an extra-innings win. Miguel Sano also returned to the field after missing two games. Twins Daily is the spot for all of the Twins minor league information! Check back each day.RED WINGS REPORT Rochester 3, Columbus 5 Box Score Alex Meyer was back on the mound for the Red Wings on Tuesday night. He gave up five runs on nine hits in four innings. He struck out two and walked none. Of the 68 pitches that he threw, 42 of them were strikes. It appears that he’s working on throwing more strikes, and he did that, but some of them may have hit too much of the plate. After two scoreless innings, he gave up a two-run double to a rehabbing Nick Swisher. Stephen Pryor got the next five outs, three of them on strikeouts. Logan Darnell got four outs, one via the K. Ryan Pressly came on and struck out four in two perfect innings. The Red Wings were not able to do much against former big leaguer Shaun Marcum, who is now 3-0 with a 2.00 ERA for Columbus. The Red Wings got some power in this game from a couple of players from Puerto Rico. Danny Ortiz homered for the third time this season. Eddie Rosario went 2-4 with his third home run. Both homers were against Marcum in the sixth inning. Australian James Beresford added two hits in the game. Reynaldo Rodriguez went 0-4. It ended a 12-game hitting streak during which he hit .429/.500/.690 with four doubles, two triples, a home run and eight RBI. With the loss, the Red Wings fall to 10-8. CHATTANOOGA CHATTER Chattanooga 6, Tennessee 7 Box Score The Lookouts got plenty of offense on this night, but another rough start from Greg Peavey, and the team fell to 8-10. For Greg Peavey, it started out rough. In fact, the Smokies’ lead-off hitter, Jacob Hannemann homered to lead off the bottom of the first inning. Two batters later, Kyle Schwarber hit his second home run in as many days, his fourth of the season. Dalton Hicks stayed hot in this game. In the top of the third inning, he launched a game-tying, two-run homer. It was his third of the season, and his third in the last four games. The lead didn’t last long as Peavey gave up a two-run homer to Bijan Rademacher in the bottom half of the inning. In the fourth inning, the Lookouts got to within a run on a bases-loaded infield single from Buxton. However, in the bottom of the fourth inning, the Smokies got that run back. Peavey was replaced in the fifth inning by Cole Johnson who worked a scoreless inning. The Lookouts took the lead in the sixth inning. Mike Gonzales led off with his second homer. Adam Brett Walker followed it with a double. With two outs and the bases loaded, Dalton Hicks came through with a two-run single. Johnson followed it up with another 1-2-3 inning. Johnson did give up one in the seventh inning that tied the game at six. Dallas Gallant came on for the eighth inning. The leadoff batter hit a liner to right field. Travis Harrison went for the shoe-string catch and the ball got by him. It was called a single with a two-base error. One out later, a soft single scored the go-ahead run. Peavey went four innings and was charged with five runs on eight hits and a walk. He struck out one. Cole Johnson gave up one run on two hits over three innings. He struck out three. Dallas Gallant gave up the unearned run in the eighth inning on two hits. Hicks again led the offense. He went 2-4 with a walk and his third homer. Mike Gonzales was 2-5 with his third double and second home run. Adam Brett Walker hit his third double, but then he walked four times too. Byron Buxton went 1-3 with two walks and his fourth stolen base. Miguel Sano returned to the lineup after missing two games. He went 0-5 with three strikeouts. MIRACLE MATTERS Ft. Myers 1, Palm Beach 3 Box Score Aaron Slegers got the loss, but he gave the Miracle exactly what they needed in this game. After playing a lot of extra innings in the last four or five days, the Miracle needed a starter to give them some innings. Slegers gave up three runs (2 earned) on four hits and a walk over eight innings. Alexis Tapia, who will likely pitch for Elizabethton this summer, made his Florida State League debut with a scoreless ninth inning. The offense had plenty of opportunities. The Miracle had seven hits and walked five times, but they were only able to cross the plate once. Bryan Haar hit his third double and scored one batter later when Mitch Garver singled him in. Logan Wade led the offense. He went 2-4 with his fourth double. He also committed two errors at third base. Niko Goodrum walked twice. The Miracle fall to 7-13 through their first 20 games. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 1, Quad Cities 0 (11 innings) Box Score The Kernels began another commuter series with a Tuesday morning game in Davenport, Iowa. After a league-wide day off on Monday, it’s safe to say that the bats may not have made the trip with the team. However, the Kernels scored their first extra-innings run of the season in the 11th to grab another win. Zack Larson led off the 11th with a single. The next two batters had sacrifice bunts and in each case, the pitcher made an error. With the bases loaded, third baseman T.J. White ended the game with a sacrifice fly. Jared Wilson made the start and threw the first five shutout innings. He gave up four hits, walked four and struck out two. Randy LeBlanc came on and gave up two hits over three scoreless innings. He struck out three. Cam Booser got the ninth and 10th innings. He gave up two hits, walked two but struck out three. After gaining the lead, Trevor Hildenberger pitched a scoreless 11th inning for the save. It was his second save of the year. Larson led the offense, going 2-5. Zach Granite and Nick Gordon led off the game with back-to-back singles. That gives Granite an eight-game hitting streak. Gordon extended his hit streak to seven games. The Kernels are now 13-6. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Ryan Pressly, Rochester Red Wings Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Dalton Hicks, Chattanooga Lookouts WEDNESDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Columbus @ Rochester (5:35 CST) – LHP Jason Wheeler Chattanooga @ Tennessee (11:00 CST) – RHP DJ Baxendale Ft. Myers – No Game Scheduled Cedar Rapids @ Quad Cities (7:00 CST) – LHP Mat Batts Please feel free to ask any questions and discuss the Tuesday games. Click here to view the article

They've been tremendous, starters and relievers: ................. IP H R ER BB K WP HR ERA Starters 101.2 83 32 28 23 114 6 4 2.48 Relievers 61 43 15 13 28 73 8 1 1.91 ________________________________________________________________ TOTAL 162.2 126 47 41 51 187 14 5 2.27 Sorry about the formatting!