While the Twins were learning difficult baserunning lessons in Chicago, their top farm club put on a hitting display while hosting a doubleheader at CHS Field on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Saints and Louisville for their regularly-scheduled contest, shortened to seven innings per minor-league doubleheader rules, to begin affairs before\u00a0settling accounts for a postponed June 27 game as day turned to night on the east side of downtown St. Paul.<\/p>\n
The home side outscored their southern visitors 18-3 over a victorious pair of games to improve to 53-41 on the season heading into Sunday\u2019s series finale against the Bats.<\/p>\n
Game 1: Saints 11, Bats 3<\/p>\n
St. Paul began Game 1 with a bang and ended it the same way, scoring four runs in the first inning and seven more in the sixth to thump Louisville 11-3.<\/p>\n
An RBI by Kyler Fedko was followed by run-scoring singles from Aaron Sabato and Cody Morissette and a bases-loaded walk from David Banuelos as the Saints took a 4-0 lead before the Bats got their first cracks at bat.<\/p>\n
The visitors logged three runs over the fifth and sixth innings before their wheels fell off as the hosts turned a close game into a blowout in their final turn at the plate.<\/p>\n
Eleven Saints batters took a turn in the bottom of the sixth, with seven of those coming around to score on a cornucopia of base hits and walks before a Banuelos three-run homer put a final exclamation point on the inning and game.<\/p>\n
St. Paul\u2019s offense was evenly spread down the lineup card, with eight of nine batters collecting at least one hit. Eight of nine also logged at least one run scored, with six batters notching at least one RBI.<\/p>\n
Saints starting pitcher Ryan Gallagher tossed five innings for the win, allowing four hits, one walk and one earned run on a solo homer while striking out four. He improved to 3-4 on the season and lowered his ERA from 7.44 to 6.95 with the performance.<\/p>\n
Game 2: Saints 7, Bats 0<\/p>\n
Louisville was able to keep St. Paul\u2019s hot-hitting ways in check for the first four innings of the nightcap. However, St. Paul starter Ricky Castro and a bevy of Saints relievers were also up to the task as the game remained scoreless into the top of the fifth.<\/p>\n
Matt Wallner drove in Fedko what was to become the game-winning run for the \u201cvisitors\u201d on a single to right. St. Paul was playing as the \u201caway\u201d team as the game was a make-up for a contest originally scheduled to be played in Louisville.<\/p>\n
After another scoreless frame by Saints pitching, the St. Paul offense got back to work \u2014 putting the game away with a half dozen runs on another succession of singles and walks to score all six runs without the benefit of an extra-base hit.<\/p>\n
The Bats remained silent in their final two turns at the plate as the Saints finished off the shutout victory and doubleheader sweep.<\/p>\n
C.J. Culpepper (2-2, 3.00), who came on in the fourth innings as St. Paul\u2019s second of five relievers used in the game, claimed the win with 1 1\/3 innings of one-hit, one-strikeout ball. Raul Brito replaced Culpepper with one out in the fifth and snagged his second hold of the season.<\/p>\n
Saints hitters cranked out 12 hits in the second seven-inning contest, 10 of which were singles. Ben Ross hit his second triple of the summer, while Fedko smacked his 14th double of the campaign to account for St. Paul\u2019s extra-base hits.<\/p>\n
Wallner went 3 for 4 with three RBI, Fedko was 2 for 3 with an RBI and two runs scored; Ross was 2 for 4 while scoring once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Twins were learning difficult baserunning lessons in Chicago, their top farm club put on a hitting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,822,60,3190,4,185,5855,148],"class_list":["post-755606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-twins","tag-baseball","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-minnesotatwins","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-st-paul-saints","tag-twins"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116944719262874979","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}