Seth Stohs

As has been the case throughout most of the first two months of the 2013 season, the excitement on this night in the Twins minor league system came from the bottom two levels. The Ft. Myers Miracle and Cedar Rapids Kernels combined to score 28 runs on the day. One prospect drilled two home runs in a game. Vance Worley made his second start with Rochester. Was he able to duplicate he results of his first game? And which Alex Meyer showed up on Saturday. The Twins minor leagues have had quite a few walk-off wins already this year. It was fun watching the big league club get a walk-off win on Saturday afternoon. With that, check out what happened in the Twins minor league system on Saturday, including the Dominican Summer League opener: Rochester Red Wings 3, Charlotte Knights 4 Box Score Vance Worley took the mound for his second Red Wings start. His first was a complete game shutout. His second? Not so much. He gave up a first inning run. Then he gave up three runs in the second inning. Not good start, but he went on to throw five shutout innings. Overall, he gave up four runs on ten hits and a walk in seven innings. He struck out seven. Luis Perdomo struckout one in a scoreless ninth inning. The Red Wings had plenty of scoring opportunities. They have eight hits, but they also walked 12 times. Somehow, they managed to score just three runs. Antoan Richardson led off and went 1-2 with three walks and his fifth stolen base. Oswaldo Arcia was 1-2 with three walks. His sixth Red Wings home run came in the ninth inning and cut the deficit to one. Jeff Clement was 2-4. New Britain Rock Cats 4, Bowie Baysox 3 Box Score Alex Meyer has been solid but quite inconsistent for the Rock Cats this season. On this night, he was terrific. The lanky right-hander went the first 6.1 innings. He gave up one run on two hits and two walks. He struck out a season-high ten opponents. Blake Martin came on and gave up two runs on two hits and two walks. AJ Achter came on and got the final five outs for his third save. He gave up two hits and a walk, but no runs. James Beresford led the way by going 3-4 with his fifth stolen base. He’s now hitting .338 and inexplicably remaining in AA. Danny Ortiz was 2-4. Danny Santana was very good in May and went 2-4 with his 10th and 11th stolen bases in this game. Nate Hanson and Curt Smith each doubled. Ft. Myers Miracle 13, Palm Beach Cardinals 4 Box Score The Miracle offense exploded in this game. Angel Morales is inexplicably still in Ft. Myers. It’s his third season with the Miracle, and he had a terrific month of May. In this game, he was 3-4 with two doubles. Kennys Vargas was 3-6. Eddie Rosario went 3-5 with his fifth triple. Andy Leer went 2-4 with two walks and his fourth home run. Aderlin Mejia was 2-5 with a walk. Jhon Goncalves went 2-6. Tom Stuifbergen was the recipient of all the run support. The Dutch right-hander went six innings. He gave up three runs on seven hits. He walked none and struck out three. Chad Rodgers threw two shutout innings. He gave up two hits, walked two and struck out one. Nelvin Fuentes gave up a run on a hit in an inning. Cedar Rapids Kernels 15, Kane County 2 Box Score Byron Buxton was given a very rare night off, and the Kernels’ bats took off. Fifteen runs on fifteen hits and nine walks makes for a pretty good day. Dalton Hicks led the way. The burly first baseman went 3-4 with a walk, his sixth and seventh homers and four RBI. Tyler Grimes went 3-3 with two walks and a triple. Jeremias Pineda went 2-3 with two walks and his first home run. JD Williams and Niko Goodrum were both 2-5 with a walk and a double. Jorge Polanco and Adam Walker each added a double. [ATTACH=CONFIG]4273[/ATTACH] Photo by Rinaldi Photos Lefty Brett Lee was appreciative of the run support, though he did not need all of it. He gave up two runs (1 earned) on seven hits and two walks in seven innings. He struck out four. Manuel Soliman then struck out four in two perfect innings. DSL Twins 5, DSL Orioles 6 Box Score Opening Day in the Dominican Summer League. The Twins squad used seven pitchers to get through nine innings. Onesimo Hernandez gave up one run on four hits (and a hit batter) in three innings. He struck out thre. Carlos Aponte gave up two runs on two hits and a hit batter in one inning. Sebastian Perez gave up one run on two hits in two innings. Robener Cabrera gave up an unearned run on one hit and a walk in one innings. Johan Quezada walked two and struck out two in one scoreless inning. Rendis Reyes got two outs, though he gave up one run on two walks. Ezequiel Zarzuela got the final out. The offense was led by 17-year-old catcher Rainis Silva who went 2-4. Rafael Valera and Carlos Martinez each doubled. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below.

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Baseball draft: Scouts must look past stats to find a Kirby Puckett - TwinCities.com Berardino writes a great article on what the scouts need to look at. These things are often ridiculed, but they absolutely matter. There is a lot in the article about Kirby Puckett:

Minnesota Twins: Chris Parmelee more aggressive, more successful - TwinCities.com We always want to talk about how hitters need to be patient, and sometimes that can be to a fault. We saw it early with Aaron Hicks, but it was the same thing with Parmelee. Sometimes the best pitch you're going to see is the first one!

Souhan: Jake Mauer watching little brother Joe turn into a father | StarTribune.com Here's a nice article in the Strib from Jim Souhan. He was in Cedar Rapids and talked to Jake Mauer about his brother Joe and how he's had to change since learning he would become a father of twins. Jake is a little more talkative than Joe, not that it is a bad thing either way, but he's a lot of fun to talk to.

Reusse: Florimon had long journey to majors | StarTribune.com At Star Tribune, Patrick Reusse wrote a nice article about how long Pedro Florimon has been working toward this goal of being a big league shortstop. Remember that he had 3 or 4 errors in the first week of the season? Also: I think if he can hit in that .250 range, we will be thrilled with Florimon. Not bad for a waiver claim!

Warne: Power hitting numbers rising throughout Twins organization | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins Brandon Warne wrote an article about the power that is appearing more in the Twins farm system. He got some great quotes from Terry Ryan. He mentions that Sano, Colabello and Vargas are in the Top 25 in the minors in home runs and Adam Walker and Travis Harrison are very close. Check out the article.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1816-Twins-Minor-League-Report-(5-31)-Friday-Night-Lights

A night after the Twins and the Twins minor league affiliates went 6-0, the organization went 1-4 on the final night in May. The two upper affiliates both played one-run games. On Saturday, the Twins Dominican Summer League team will open up its season. We may have to do a game report or two this weekend. Also coming will be the Twins minor league hitter, starting pitcher and relief pitcher of the month reports. The Twins did make some transactions in the minor leagues on Friday. Matt Hauser was promoted to New Britain while Jose Gonzalez was sent back to Ft. Myers. Both would pitch for their new team on this night. Check out what happened in the Twins minor league system on Friday: Rochester Red Wings 3, Charlotte Knights 2 Box Score Cole De Vries struggled, but he found a way to get through five innings and give up just two runs. He gave up nine hits and intentionally walked a batter. However, his night ended with a nice 1, 2, 3 fifth frame. Virgil Vasquez came on and threw three shutout innings. However, he gave up a leadoff single to start the bottom of the 9th. After a sacrifice bunt, the next batter was intentionally walked. Michael Tonkin was brought in. He is a ground ball pitcher, so they were hoping for an inning-ending double play. However, as he had done a night earlier in his Red Wings debut, Tonkin gave up a run-scoring single to Gordon Beckham that ended the game. The offense was pretty quiet. Doug Bernier went 2-4. Both Red Wings runs came on home run balls. Oswaldo Arcia’s fifth home run but them on the scoreboard. With two outs, down by a run in the top of the 9th, Brian Dinkelman pinch hit for Danny Lehmann and hit a game-tying home run. It was his third homer of the season. New Britain Rock Cats 6, Bowie Baysox 7 Box Score Trevor May had one rough inning again. In total, he gave up four runs on eight hits and three walks in five innings. He struck out five. However, he gave up all four runs in the second inning before settling in. The Rock Cats were able to tie it up in the third inning. Chris Pettit had a two-run double. It was followed by a two-run homer by Reynaldo Rodriguez. Edgar Ibarra came on and gave up two runs on three hits in his two innings. After Dan Turpen and Matt Hauser each threw a scoreless inning, the game went to the bottom of the ninth. Nate Hanson crushed a double off of the wall with two outs to tie the game. Cole Johnson came on for the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately, he gave up the first run he’s allowed in all of May, and the Rock Cats dropped the game. Curt Smith went 3-5. Nate Hanson was 2-5 with his second double. Reynaldo Rodriguez went 2-5 with his fifth home run. Ft. Myers Miracle 1, Palm Beach Cardinals 4 Box Score Matt Summers was excellent through five, but the Miracle bats just couldn’t muster enough on this night. Summers started the game with five shutout innings. He got two outs in the 6th inning, but gave up a run in the inning before being replaced by Jose Gonzalez who got the inning’s final out. Gonzalez then gave up a run in the 7th inning. Corey Williams pitched the 8th frame and gave up two runs on a hit and two walks. Eddie Rosario was 2-4. He had two of the team’s five hits. Jhon Goncalves hit his sixth double. Following up on yesterday’s story, Miguel Sano was in the lineup today for the Miracle and went 1-3 with a sacrifice fly. Cedar Rapids Kernels 5, Kane County 2 Box Score The Kernels jumped out to a fast start with two runs in the first inning. JO Berrios started out slow. He gave up a run in the first inning on a hit and an uncharacteristic two walks. However, he settled down nicely. Berrios gave up one run on three hits and two walks in 5.2 innings. He struck out four. He was replaced by Alex Muren who went the next 2.1 innings without allowing a run. He gave up two hits, walked one and struck out one. Tim Atherton got just one out in the ninth inning. He gave up one run on two hits and a walk. David Hurlbut came on and got the final two outs for his fifth save. Berrios improved to 4-2. Dalton Hicks wen 3-4 with his 16th double. Michael Quesada went 2-4 with his second double. Adam Walker went 2-4 with his 11th double. Byron Buxton stole his 26th base. [ATTACH=CONFIG]4266[/ATTACH] Photo by Rinaldi Photos Please feel free to comment or ask questions below.

I like looking at it this way.. I wonder if how that 83% changes when the Twins are down by 1 run or 2 runs, or if the game is tied?

Thanks for the verification.

Jeremy tweeted this morning that Matt Hauser is heading up to New Britain with Jose Gonzalez heading back down to Ft. Myers. Also, he tweeted that the Twins have released Bryan Augenstein (was on the Red Wings DL).

Cardinals' OF Oscar Tavares.

So, they should just skip the draft completely... they don't need anyone... Ha! I think you make a good point. There may be big league potential in all of them, but generally speaking, only maybe the top 5 prospects in any ranking will be impact types. Those in that 6-18 range can be regulars, mid-to-back rotation types and quality bullpen arms. After that, you're talking about role players, cups of coffee, etc. (except for the really young types that I'm not ready to move up yet). At the end of the day, somewhere around 10 of them will get to the big leagues and we hope that 3-4 of them are impact. The Twins system is nice though. I believe that the first 7-9 can be real impact types, and a lot of them can be role players.

Evan Longoria, Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Braun turned out pretty good...

For all the overreaction by a lot of fans, the Twins were not wrong in saying that Gibson was being inconsistent. Walters and Deduno had been pitching well. Also, the Twins have to make decisions on Walters and Deduno for the short and longer term. They have earned another try, and both have responded well so far. As Terry Ryan said yesterday with Judd and Dubay, there's no question that Gibson has the highest ceiling. There's no question that he's going to come up and contribute for a long time. All I can say is, good for Deduno and Walters. I like when those types, guys who have put in their dues for a long time can come up and succeed. Walters is pitching as well as he was last year before his injury. Deduno is what he is and yet, he has that ability to get outs a lot. I also enjoy seeing his emotion, watching him wear his emotions on his sleeve.

Buxton tweeted during the rain delay that he had never seen 80 mph winds. Sounds like it was just crazy, but good that they got both games in. What were your thoughts, in person, of Hein Robb? He was so young and so raw when the Twins signed him as a 16-year-old from South Africa (yet he was a 16-year-old on their WBC team and pitching in games!). Left-handed and breathing?

Yeah, he didn't run out a ground ball. Like I said, that's the kind of stuff they can't let those guys get away with. It also is good for mientkiewicz to make the point that the stars won't be treated any differently. That isn't always the case. It should be.

Waiting in the Wings: Kyle Gibson - Fake Teams A nice article on the Twins prospect who is likely very close to a big league promotion. I like this line: The article includes some great GIFs of his pitches, the fastball/sinker, a curveball and a changeup.

I love when the Twins minor league affiliates and minor leaguers get some national recognition. Jon Heyman wrote an article talking about how the team is on its way back thanks to a great farm system. You have to love quotes like this: And that's just the first paragraph.

I love his BB/K rate. He has struggled a little more his last couple of outings. I also think they're going to be more cautious with him on innings. Also, hopefully, the Kernels will make the playoffs and be able to use him. I don't see him being promoted, certainly not based on six starts. Let's get him to 75 innings or so and see how things are going.

Yeah, that's a big part of it. Rosario is very good, and he knows it. There is that fine line between confidence and cockiness that Rosario butts up against at times. Mientkiewicz hopefully took care of some of that on field last week. We saw the same thing with Sano tonight, so we'll see if he sits for a game or two.

I like it. This was very interesting... Now I have another name to follow through the draft next week!