Minor League Report (4/7): Sands Stymies Bats

[Ted Schwerzler]

Making his Triple-A debut, Twins pitching prospect Cole Sands looked the part of a star in what was a dazzling first outing. Unfortunately things got away from the Saints late as they dropped their first game of the season.

 

TRANSACTIONS

• Minnesota Twins signed Chance Sisco and assigned to St. Paul
• OF Gilberto Celestino promoted to Minnesota
• RHP Griffin Jax was optioned to St. Paul
• OF Kyle Garlick was reassigned to St. Paul

SAINTS SENTINEL
Louisville 5, St. Paul 4
Box Score

Exciting pitching prospect Cole Sands made his Triple-A debut in this one for the St. Paul Saints. Working five scoreless innings, he allowed just a single baserunner on one base hit. Sands punched out seven and was efficient throwing 45 of 63 pitches for strikes.

The Saints looked to continue their quest towards an undefeated season and scored first. Former Astros outfielder Derek Fisher went deep for a solo shot in the 2nd inning. After giving up the lead in the bottom of the 6th, St. Paul immediately went back to work.

Jake Cave scampered across the plate on a wild pitch by Kyle Zimmer in the 7th inning, and then the Saints added again in the 8th inning. Cave singled to drive in Mark Contreras and move Curtis Terry up to second base. Following a Fisher free pass, Terry scored with the bases chucked.

Converted infielder Jordan Gore made his Triple-A debut after a 2.39 ERA split between Double-A Wichita and Single-A Cedar Rapids last season. He worked a strong first inning but got blown up for four runs on three hits in his second inning of work. Unfortunately the four run inning for the Bats did the Saints in.

Jake Cave had a nice night at the dish going 3-for-4 with a double and driving in a run.

WIND SURGE WISDOM
The Wind Surge will begin their season on Friday at home against the Tulsa Drillers. The Surge will send top prospect Matt Canterino to the mound for the season opener. Canterino was 1-0 with a 0.78 ERA in 2021 before being sidelined with an elbow injury. 

The return of one of the most exciting pitchers in the Twins organization should be electric.  In the meantime, be sure to check out the Wind Surge roster preview.

KERNELS NUGGETS
The Kernels announced on Wednesday that LHP and Burnsville, MN native Aaron Rozek will take the bump for Cedar Rapids' opener on Friday against Beloit. Signed to a minor-league contract last season, Rozek went 3-2 with a 2.40 ERA between Fort Myers, Cedar Rapids, and Wichita in 2021. 

Be sure to take a look at the Cedar Rapids roster in advance of their opener on Friday.

MUSSEL MATTERS

Fort Myers will give the ball to right-handed pitcher John Stankiewicz on Opening Day. He was 1-0 with a 2.84 ERA in his professional debut season split between the Complex League and Fort Myers last year.

You can check out the Fort Myers roster prior to the opening on Friday.

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY

Pitcher of the Day - Cole Sands (St. Paul) - 5.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K
Hitter of the Day - Jake Cave (St. Paul) 3-4, 2B, R, RBI

PROSPECT SUMMARY
#2 - Royce Lewis (St. Paul) - Did Not Play
#3 - Jose Miranda (St. Paul) - 1-5
#13 - Cole Sands (St. Paul) - 5.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K

FRIDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
St. Paul @ Louisville (6:05 PM CST) - RHP Dereck Rodriguez
Wichita vs Tulsa (6:05 PM CST) - RHP Matt Canterino
Cedar Rapids vs Beloit (6:35 PM CST) - LHP Aaron Rozek
Fort Myers @ Clearwater (5:30 PM CST) - RHP John Stankiewicz

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[Dman]

Gore only needed 8 pitches in his first inning but then had to wait a long time before he got back out to the mound and had trouble throwing strikes.  Seemed like he leaned on his fastball a little bit too much and it bit him in the end.  It also looked like it was pretty cold towards the end of the game might have trouble gripping the ball as he did hit a batter as well.

Cave looked really good tonight.  I think all three hits came with two strikes.  Last hit was more luck than anything as it was check swing dribbler but those count too.

Sands was great.  He worked fast didn't walk a batter, was efficient and K'd 7 batters for good measure.  Still not sure I trust his stuff at the MLB level especially his fastball but can't argue his dominance tonight.

Tough luck loss for Gore as he lost his stuff with the cold but when the weather warms up I am sure he will be his dominant self.

[PDX Twin]

In the text it says Canterino for Wichita but in the list of games it says Woods-Richardson???

[2wins87]

4 minutes ago, PDX Twin said:

In the text it says Canterino for Wichita but in the list of games it says Woods-Richardson???

Minor league app says Canterino.

[RpR]

Interesting :

OPS:

Fisher 1.232, Cave 1.174, Conteras 1.025, Larnach 0.00

Batting Average:

Cave .455, Fisher .286, Conteras .250, Larnach .111

[ashbury]

59 minutes ago, RpR said:

Interesting :

OPS:

Fisher 1.232, Cave 1.174, Conteras 1.025, Larnach 0.00

Batting Average:

Cave .455, Fisher .286, Conteras .250, Larnach .111

You might have Larnach's numbers reversed.  I don't think you can OPS 0 if there's a batting average that isn't.

[Danchat]

Winder and Duran have been getting the headlines lately, but I have been high on Sands for some time now. 

[mini_tb]

8 hours ago, RpR said:

Interesting :

OPS:

Fisher 1.232, Cave 1.174, Conteras 1.025, Larnach 0.00

Batting Average:

Cave .455, Fisher .286, Conteras .250, Larnach .111

I'm going to go out on a limb and say small sample size.

[mikelink45]

Nice start for the Saints.  I will be interested in how they use Winder because he would be better off starting in St Paul than rusting in the BP.  I hope they are aggressive with him.  Sands looks really good to start the season and he should be in line for a call up as the season progresses too. 

[Trov]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Nice start for the Saints.  I will be interested in how they use Winder because he would be better off starting in St Paul than rusting in the BP.  I hope they are aggressive with him.  Sands looks really good to start the season and he should be in line for a call up as the season progresses too. 

I have a feeling the plan for the first 2 to 3 weeks this season is to really piggy back starters.  I doubt many starters first start will go more than 5 innings no matter the pitch count.  I also bet they will have pitch counts no more than 80 some even less.  So the guys like Winder will then be asked to do a good 3 to 4 innings as well. 

[Seth Stohs]

21 minutes ago, Trov said:

I have a feeling the plan for the first 2 to 3 weeks this season is to really piggy back starters.  I doubt many starters first start will go more than 5 innings no matter the pitch count.  I also bet they will have pitch counts no more than 80 some even less.  So the guys like Winder will then be asked to do a good 3 to 4 innings as well. 

To piggyback on this, they absolutely love Winder and his potential (in my opinion), so they wouldn't sacrifice his development to keep him up, so I would definitely expect him to piggyback with someone and get consistent work to build up. Then he'll go back to St. Paul and build up to 90+ pitches. 

[PDX Twin]

58 minutes ago, Trov said:

I doubt many starters first start will go more than 5 innings no matter the pitch count.  

I'd be interested in knowing how many (or, actually, how few) times a Twins starter went more than 5 innings all of last season.

[RpR]

12 hours ago, ashbury said:

You might have Larnach's numbers reversed.  I don't think you can OPS 0 if there's a batting average that isn't.

Go look at the stats given for the game.

 

[Twins33]

On 4/8/2022 at 9:56 AM, PDX Twin said:

I'd be interested in knowing how many (or, actually, how few) times a Twins starter went more than 5 innings all of last season.

62 times, unless I miscounted