Twins Minor League Report (4/22): Vavra Continues Roll

RED WINGS REPORT

Rochester 11, Syracuse 7

Box Score

Jason Wheeler had the worst AAA start of his four-game AAA career. He recorded only 13 outs and allowed seven earned runs on eight hits. He allowed home runs in each of the first three innings. He struck out three.

Stephen Pryor picked up the win, striking out three in his 1 ⅔ innings pitched. Pryor was the first of the four-headed bullpen monster - which also included Logan Darnell, A.J. Achter and Ryan Pressly - that pitched 4 ⅔ innings of no-hit ball.

Despite the rough outing from Wheeler, the hitters had a pretty stellar game coming back from five down to win convincingly. Aaron Hicks and Doug Bernier each contributed three hits in this 16-hit attack. Hicks had two doubles while driving in two. Bernier batted three runs in. Eddie Rosario homered and doubled, bringing his OPS up to .729, the highest it’s been since the third game of the season.

The Red Wings improved to 7-6.

CHATTANOOGA CHATTER

Chattanooga 3, Mississippi 4

Box Score

We didn’t get to see The Machine today, that’s for sure. But don’t overreact to the less than expected numbers. Jose Berrios only lasted five innings (83 pitches, 58 strikes), but he wasn’t aided by defensive errors from the team’s top two prospects: Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano.

Berrios cruised through four innings, navigating trouble by getting a pick-off and nine groundball outs (as opposed to only one in the air). He did only strike out three batters, but got 13 swinging strikes (by my count). Three of the four runs Berrios allowed were earned.

Adrian Salcedo pitched the last three innings, allowing only two hits while striking out three. Salcedo has been very effective against both left- and right-handed hitters so far in this young season, impressively allowing an OBA of .176 vs lefties.

The offense spotted Berrios a 3-0 lead, but didn’t do much as a whole. Buxton went 0-4 and Sano went 0-3 dropping their season averages to .180 and .175, respectively.

Levi Michael hit a two-run home run, his first, batting in the nine-hole.

Travis Harrison had a double among two hits to raise his average to .310. Max Kepler got his first professional sniff of AA, giving Adam Brett Walker a day off in left field, and doubled.

It should be mentioned that Walker failed to catch a routine fly ball in last night’s game. Could that have led to a day off? It’s probably not the sole reason, but it should be a lesson to all outfielders that if you want to play every day, you can’t “ozzie” fly balls.

This is the Lookouts third straight loss and drops them to 6-6.

MIRACLE MATTERS

Ft. Myers 2, Palm Beach 7

Box Score

Well, the Palm Beach Cardinals completed the three-game sweep and the Miracle drop to 5-9.

Niko Goodrum was 2-5 with a double. He scored both runs. Mitch Garver also had a multi-hit game and drove in a run.

Defensively, Marcus Knecht, Goodrum, Tanner Vavra and Alex Muren all committed errors.

Aaron Slegers got roughed up, giving up five runs (four earned) on eight hits in only three innings. He struck out one. After Muren gave up two more runs in two innings, Brandon Peterson (three strikeouts) pitched two no-hit innings and J.T. Chargois struck out one in the final frame.

KERNELS NUGGETS

Cedar Rapids 5, Wisconsin 4

Box Score

The Kernels jumped out to an early lead and hung on tight to improve to 10-4.

Zach Granite and Nick Gordon led off the game with singles. Zack Larson was hit by a pitch to load the bases. And Max Murphy “drove in” the first run of the game with a walk.

Trey Vavra drove added another run with a run-scoring single. T.J. White drove in another run on a fielder’s choice. With Pat Kelly batting, the Kernels successfully pulled off a double-steal with Max Murphy scoring from third for the fourth run of the inning.

The Kernels add their fifth, final and game-winning run on a White single in the sixth which followed a Vavra double.

All told, Vavra went 4-4 and had over half of the team’s seven hits. He’s now batting .372.

Zach Tillery started in place of John Curtiss and struck out six in 4 ⅔ innings. He gave up three runs.

Randy LeBlanc (win) and Cameron Booser (save) split the last four innings. (LeBlanc also got the last out of the fifth.) LeBlanc struck out five and gave up one hit - a home run. Booser also struck out five and dropped his ERA to 1.13. He did have an error, as did Nick Gordon.

TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY

Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Red Wings bullpen

Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Trey Vavra, Cedar Rapids

THURSDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS

Rochester @ Syracuse (12:05 CST) – RHP Mark Hamburger

Chattanooga @ Mississippi (7:00 CST) – RHP Greg Peavey

Ft. Myers @ St. Lucie (5:30 CST) – RHP Chih-Wei Hu

Cedar Rapids @ Wisconsin (12:05 CST) – LHP Stephen Gonsalves