Yeah, I really should have looked at the Surprise Saguaros' schedule before I reserved my hotel for this trip. After Saturday night's Fall Stars Game and Monday afternoon's Surprise game, the Saguaros (for whom all of the Minnesota Twins AFP prospects play this fall) have no more home games while I'm in town.

The game today was the first of four games that Surprise is playing in some other distant part of the Phoenix area. Just means I'll be doing a lot of driving between now and Friday. Live & learn, I suppose.

The Saguaros dropped a 10-7 decision to the Mesa Solar Sox this afternoon (Tuesday). It was interesting, in that Mesa scored four runs in each of the first two innings and when the score stood 8-5 after three and a half innings, this was looking like it had the makings of a four-hour game.

In the end, it wrapped up in two hours and forty-six minutes. It is not a coincidence that they use the pitch clock in this league. It really does keep the game moving.

It also didn't hurt that the only two Twins prospects to take the field for Surprise, relief pitchers Mason Melotakis and John Curtiss, each worked a clean 1-2-3 inning when their turns came to toe the rubber.

Tomorrow afternoon, it's over to Scottsdale. With any luck, some of the Twins' position players will be back in the lineup and maybe I'll even get to see Stephen Gonsalves get a start against Tim Tebow and the Scorpions.

As always (or almost always, anyway), here are a few pictures of Twins in action today.

• http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ArteagaAFL16a-600x400.jpg
  
• Ivan Arteaga
  

• http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/MelotakisAFL16d-600x400.jpg
  
• Mason Melotakis
  

• http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/MelotakisAFL16b-400x600.jpg
  
• Mason Melotakis covering first base on a ground ball to the first baseman
  

• http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/MelotakisAFL16a-600x400.jpg
  
• Mason Melotakis
  

• http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/CurtissAFL16b-600x400.jpg
  
• John Curtiss
  

• http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/CurtissAFL16a-600x400.jpg
  
• John Curtiss
  

• http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/CurtissAFL16c-600x400.jpg
  
• John Curtiss
  

All photos by S D Buhr and may not be used without permission.

(Article originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com)