The New-Look Saints Opened Their Homestand With A Bang

St. Paul – No organization had as much turnover from the trade deadline as the Minnesota Twins. Their Triple-A affiliate returned to St. Paul for a six-game homestand against the Iowa Cubs with nine new faces.

The Twins called up seven players who’d been with the Saints for most of the year to fill major-league roster spots on Friday. As a result, the Saints called up five players from Double-A, and four came in from the trade deadline to fill in their open spots. It’s unprecedented turnover, but Saints manager Toby Gardenhire said they handled the situation like pros.

“You never expect something like this in the middle of a season when you get a whole kind of turnover like that, but it’s all part of it,” said Gardenhire. “We’ve got a bunch of good guys, and everybody did a pretty nice job last week. Last week was pretty hectic for a couple of days, but I thought the guys did a really nice job of just trying to settle in and play some baseball.”

There was a familiar face on the mound Tuesday night to open up the series. Savage, Minn. native Aaron Rozek, toed the mound for the Saints for the first time at home since April 26.

Rozek was looking for some good home cooking. His last outing in Toledo was disappointing. He allowed five runs on six hits and two walks in a 7-1 loss to Toledo over the game’s last two innings. Fortunately for him, things turned the corner on Tuesday night.

“I’ve started in the past, so I just fell back into that normal routine, go about it how I normally would,” said Rozek. “So I had to really hammer down on what I wanted to make sure what pitches going into the start are going to be the in-zone pitches to get ahead with and then work from there.”

This time, Rozek threw four scoreless innings against the I-Cubs, allowing four hits, a walk, and a hit batter while striking out three. His lone mistake was a sinker that fell too inside on Owen Cassie, who had to leave the game early after getting hit by that pitch.

However, Rozek focused his praise on Jhonny Pereda, his catcher. Pereda is one of the newer faces in the Saints clubhouse, after the Twins claimed him from the Athletics on July 22.

“Jhonny’s a great guy to have behind the plate,” Rozek said. “Keeps you level-headed behind there.”

Pereda wasn’t off to a hot start with the Saints in his first five games, going 3-for-17 at the plate. But one of those hits was a triple in his last start, his first in four years, which made him feel like a kid getting a new toy for the first time in a long while.

Starting a homestand going 4-for-4 with three RBI and a triple short of the cycle? It was exactly the statement Pereda was looking to make with his new team.

“My possibility was super low to get another triple this week,” said Pereda. “I think the confidence that they gave me as soon as I get here. At the beginning, it was hard because new players, new everything. But they made me feel like at home and comfortable in the clubhouse.”

Pereda led the way to St. Paul’s 10-4 victory at the plate. However, on the basepaths, Kyler Fedko was all the talk in the clubhouse. One of the new Triple-A call-ups, Fedko had 27 stolen bases with Double-A Wichta. Still, he hadn’t had more than two stolen bases in a single game.

What does he do at his new ballpark? Steal three bases, two of which came leading the way on a double steal with shortstop Payton Eeles.

“Their pen is kind of slow to the plate,” said Fedko. “We had that in the pre-game meeting, so as soon as I got on base, I was ready to run. Everybody was kind of a 1-4, 1-5, so if anyone was in a good count, we were ready to run.”

The Saints play their last afternoon matinee game of the season on Wednesday. Newly acquired Taj Bradley will make the start for St. Paul against Javier Assad.