Curtis Terry, Toby Gardenhire talk start to Saints season before Opening Day

The St. Paul Saints held their first team practice at CHS Field for the 2022 season late Sunday morning, preparing themselves for their Opening Day in Louisville tonight. Although the Saints roster is not completed with the Twins still needing to make a couple more moves, around 15 players and the Saints coaching staff took to practice on the field on Sunday.

One of the newcomers to the Twins organization, Saints' first baseman Curtis Terry, spoke of the excitement he has with the opportunity to play every day this season. 

“I'm looking forward to playing regularly every day. That's the biggest thing. I'm looking at this, this is a really nice stadium, nice field, everything's beautiful here. I'm looking forward to playing in a different league. I haven't really played games on the East Coast too much. So that's gonna be huge for me and my family to come on and watch me play. Like I said before, it’s a fresh start with everything and it's going well, so far,” said Terry. 

The fresh start comes for Terry after spending all of his six seasons in professional baseball with the Texas Rangers organization. Terry made his MLB debut last season on July 23 in a game against the Houston Astros on the road. (For more on Curtis Terry, see his episode of Twins Spotlight here.)

Saints manager Toby Gardenhire spoke on how this first month of the season will differentiate from this time a year ago with many players starting Spring Training late due to the MLB lockout. 

“I think it's gonna be interesting for the first month for sure. Just because with the shortened spring training, there are still some guys that are ramping off and the Twins obviously signed some guys late. I'm not really sure what the expectation is, and how we're going to be able to get those guys ready yet, but we will work with them” said Gardenhire.

Some of the late additions to the Twins organization during Spring Training include Chi Chi Gonzalez, JC Ramirez, and Jake Petricka, all of whom are on the Saints roster to start the 2022 season. Of these three pitchers, only Gonzalez pitched in Twins Spring Training games twice, posting an 18.69 ERA in 4 1/3 innings pitched. 

Even with late additions to the Saints roster this last month, Gardenhire is still confident with the roster that will be set to start the season for his team.

“We have a really good group of guys and we have a great group of young prospects. And I think that they are going to help the big league team out during the season. So it will be pretty cool to start off with and just kind of see where we go. It's gonna be interesting,” said Gardenhire. 

Before arriving at St. Paul from Fort Myers, Terry took in every opportunity he could to connect with his new teammates at both the Major League and Minor League levels. Terry found himself spending a lot of time with other Georgia native players such as Tim Beckham and Byron Buxton as well as Miguel Sano, describing all three and everyone else as excellent teammates. 

“I'm enjoying them a lot. Honestly. It's much like new people, new faces. So it's kind of weird not seeing the same faces I’ve known for years. But so far, it's been so good. Everybody's been nice. Everybody's cool, I’m getting along with people. So I mean, it's been a pretty good transition,” said Terry. 

To start the season, Gardenhire and his coaching staff will be coordinating with the Twins front office and management often to make sure they are on the same page with playing time for each of the players. As Gardenhire explained, each player is looked at individually when it comes to their limitations on playing time.

“We do that with everybody. Some guys we limit more than others, the veterans often have a bit longer of a track record. Some of the starters are gonna be short because we're trying to build their arms up still. But everybody's gonna be on limitations early in the season.”

One player who is starting his season with the Saints that many Twins, Saints, and fans all across baseball will be paying attention to is Royce Lewis. Lewis, coming off an ACL injury on his right knee that kept him out all of 2021, is expected to have some playing limitations. But Gardenhire is still excited to see what the Twins' top prospect has to offer the Saints to start the season.

“I'm sure there's gonna be some game management to try and limit some of the things he does. I can't imagine I'm gonna run him out there 15 games in a row to start out the season or anything like that. The goal is not for him to just come right out of the gates, shoot out like a shotgun and play 1,000 games in a row. We'll limit the things he does. He's a special kid, he's a special player. Anytime a guy comes off an injury, you want to kind of be careful with them. So we'll be a little careful,” said Gardenhire. 

The Saints open their season on the road this week with their Opening Day on Tuesday against the Reds Triple-A affiliate the Louisville Bats. No starters have been announced for either team yet on Tuesday. The Saints' first home game for the season will be a week later on Tuesday, April 12 against the Pirates Triple AAA affiliate the Indianapolis Indians.