T-Bones Series Recap

Another series down for our boys in Dodger Blue and Red. The St. Paul Saints took on the Kansas City T-Bones in a 4 game series at CHS Field in St. Paul. This is the second home series for the Saints in 2016 and the last before the long 14 game road trip.

The series opened up on Thursday night with Jeff Shields starting for St. Paul and Johnny Shuttlesworth for the T-Bones. Shields would take the Saints through 6 1/3 innings allowing just 2 Earned Runs but the Saints were down 7-0 going into the bottom of the 6th. In the 6th St. Paul would bring in there only runs of the game with Nate Hanson knocking in Angelo Songco and Tony Caldwell driving in Hanson. The Saints would fall by a final score of 10-2 in game one of the series. A crowd of 7,157 watched Shuttlesworth take the win and Shields (1-1) the loss.

Friday night was a whole different story for both clubs, KC would have Jeremy Strawn pitch while John Straka took the Hill for St. Paul. Straka would see his way through 6 full innings giving up all 5 Kansas City runs. The Saints offense would see Tony Thomas blast a 2 run shot in the 2nd making it 2-1, the 4th would see Thomas drive in Angelo Songco and on the next at bat Gilmartin drove in Thomas to make it 4-1 St. Paul. The Saints would make the lead even bigger in the 6th with Songco driving in Harris, Thomas bringing Almadova in and a single by Tanner Vavra to score Nate Hanson to make it 7-1. The crowd which was the first non sellout in CHS Field history of 6,252 saw John Straka (2-0) take the win Strawn with the loss and Ryan Rodebaugh get his 3rd Save of the year.

The series would be tied at 2 coming into Saturday night with Cody Scarpetta getting the nod for St. Paul and Jordan Cooper on the hill for the T-Bones. After an uneventful first 3 innings KC would strike first in the 4th inning making it 1-0. St. Paul struck back with 2 in the 5th and the clubs would continue to trade blows like heavyweight boxers until the night inning. The T-Bones would rally from behind with St. Paul up 4-2.Anthony Gallas would score Wiley and Frias on an error to tie it up at 4 all. But Tyler Massey put the nail in the coffin with a 2 run shot to make it 6-4 KC. Reliever Aaron Baker took the win and Ryan Rodebaugh the loss and his first blown save in front of a crowd of 7,220.

St. Paul would look to split the series with Kansas City coming into One Last Purple Game on Sunday evening. The players would take the field from Red Corvettes wearing purple Prince inspired jerseys. Veteran Pitcher Mark Hamburger took the mound for the boys in Purple while Casey Barnes started for the Steaks. Willie Argo would homer in the 2nd to make it 1-0 STP, there wouldn't be a run score in this pitchers duel until the 6th inning when Nate Hanson drove in Aaron Gretz to make it 2-0. Barnes took the game 6 and 1/3 innings allowing 2 runs while his replacement Evan DeLuca would allow 2 runs in the 7th inning as he went 1 2/3 innings. Those runs would be off a 2 run Nate Hanson long ball to make it 4-0 Saints. The most impressive part of the night went to Mark Hamburger who pitched a complete game allowing just 1 run, on 6 hits with 6 K's and no walks and the crowd which made a new franchise record with 10,443 fans showing up. Hamburger would stay perfect with yet another win and Barnes took the loss.

With a series split against Kansas City the Saints lead the North Division with a record of 8-3 and are 1.5 games over 2nd place Winnipeg. But St. Paul is about to get road worthy as after the largest crowd in franchise history they'll play the longest road trip in club history at 14 Games. The series starts at Joe Becker Stadium in Joplin, MO against the Blasters from May 30th-June 2nd, it continues in Laredo June 3rd-5th, moved to Amarillo against the Texas AirHogs from June 6th-8th and finishes at The Birdcage in Sioux Falls June 9th-12th. The Saints will be back at home from June 13th-15th against the Sioux City Explorers. You can catch all the road games here on "Club 1220" KLBB and some game will also air on americanassociationbaseball.tv. Just remember until next time Fun Is Good and GO SAINTS!

Canaries Series Recap

Well the second series of the season has come to a close as the St. Paul Saints traveled to The Birdcage in Sioux Falls, SD to take on the archrival Canaries. The 3 game road trip was a short one for our boys as they'll be back home this weekend.

The series opened up on Monday night with the only 2 undefeated teams in the American Association coming in for a fight on each clubs 5th contest. Alec Crawford got his first start of the young season for the Canaries it was Stephen Bougher taking the mound. The game would remain scoreless until the bottom of the 4th inning when the Canaries broke the game open with a Blake Schmit Home Run and a RBI by Frank Martinez later in the inning to make it 2-0 Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls would make it 3-0 in the 6th inning with Blake Schmit getting an RBI single, Kody Knaus came in for St. Paul following that run and would shut down the Canaries the rest of the game. But offensively the Saints would not go down without a fight, as Nate Hanson would drive in Willie Argo on a sac fly in the 7th to make it 3-1. St. Paul would try and rally on closing pitcher Chase Johnson in the 9th as Nate Hanson would get an RBI Double and again drive in Willie Argo to make it 3-2, but that's where it would end as the rally would fall short. Stephen Bougher got the Win Alec Crawford would take the Saints first loss and Chase Johnson picking up his 2nd Save in front of a crowd of 1,822.

Tuesday night would see the 4-1 Saints match up with the now 5-0 Canaries. Mark Hamburger would make his Second start of the season against Misael Siverio who took the hill for Sioux Falls. The Canaries would break the game open early going up 3-0 on the Saints by the end of 2 innings. But the Saints pitching staff would not give up and went another 7 innings without letting a run! Now it was the offenses turn to shine, as Alonzo Harris would smash a solo home run (2nd of 2016) to make t 3-1 in the 3rd. But it would be the 6th when the shine really started glowing as Tony Caldwell would triple as the first batter against reliever Shane Street scoring 2 and making it a 3-3 ballgame, but Tanner Vavra would put in Caldwell on an RBI Single to make it 4-3 St. Paul after 6. In the 7th Breland Alamadova would strike with his 1st Home Run on the season to make it 5-3 which is where it ended on Tuesday night. Hamburger would take the win (2-0) Street the loss and Ryan Rodebaugh would get the Save (2) in front of a crowd of 2,056.

The finale and series decider on Wednesday night would see Robert Coe start for St. Paul and Shawn Blackwell for the Canaries. For the first time in the series the Saints would open up the game in the 1st as Tony Thomas would get an RBI Double to drive in Argo and Almadova while Tony Caldwell would drive in Angelo Songco on the next at bat to make it 3-0 Saints. No scoring would occur until Blake Schmit drove a 2 run home run in the 5th to make it 3-2, but the Saints high powered bats weren't finished. Mike Gilmartin would make it 4-2 on a home run in the 6th, Willie Argo made it 5-2 on a sac fly in the 7th. The 8th inning would see the game move up to 7-2 and in the 9th another 2 runs were scored as it was 9-2 St. Paul. Sioux Falls would try to rally in the 9th inning o Saints reliever Chris Peacock as they pulled in 3 runs, but that's where it would end with a 9-5 win and an overall series win for St. Paul (6-1). Robert Coe took the Win (2-0) and the loss went to Canaries starter Shawn Blackwell.

After a short 3 game series away from home that drew a total of 6,025 fans to Sioux Falls Stadium, St. Paul will return for 4 games at CHS Field against the Kansas City T-Bones. The series opens up on Thursday with Military Appreciation Night, Friday is Friday Night Fireworks featuring the music of commercial jingles, Saturday is an Angry Birds helmet giveaway, and it's capped off with One Last Purple Game on Sunday featuring an all Purple Fireworks SuperShow. You might want to get tickets before withdrawl sets in as the Saints will take to the road for a 14 game road trip which is the longest in Franchise history, The road trip will feature 4 games against the Joplin Blasters (May 30-June 2nd), 3 against the Laredo Lemurs (June 3rd-5th), another 3 against the Texas AirHogs (6th-8th at Potter County Memorial Stadium in Amarillo, TX) and finishing out with 4 against the Sioux Falls Canaries (June 9th-12th). You can catch the homestand on www.americanassociationbaseball.tv with the Thu-Sat games starting at 7:05 PM and the Sunday game starting at 5:05 PM. And as always thanks for checking us out and remember Fun Is Good and GO SAINTS!

RailCats Series Wrap Up

The Saints would open the 2016 campaign looking for a repeat of the success of 2015 with the opening series at home at the beautiful CHS Field in St. Paul against the Gary SouthShore RailCats.

The opening game of the series on Thursday night would see Veteran pitcher and local product (Mounds View HS and Mesabi Range CTC) Mark Hamburger take the mound for St. Paul facing the Veteran Charlie Rosario for Gary. The game would start out with a fair uneventful first 3 and a half innings with Hamburger recording 2 K's and no walks and Rosario also grabbing 2 K's and no walks. That all changed in the Bottom of the 3rd as Caldwell would lead off the inning reaching second on an error by GSS CF Tillman Pugh, Harris would line out but Almadova would reach first and move Caldwell to 3rd on an error by SS Jarred Mederos. Songco would then be walked to load the bases but nothing would come with it as Thomas would go down swinging. In the 4th the Saints would finally start scoring after a walk and a single Tanner Vavra would sacrifice bunt to put runners on 2nd and 3rd. Caldwell would then single to load the bases again followed by a 2 run RBI single by Alonzo Harris to make it 2-0 Saints. With Caldwell on 3rd Almadova would single to drive him in and put runners on 1st and 2nd with 1 out, Harris would steal 3rd and be driven in by another bunt by Willie Argo to make it 4-0 Saints. The RailCats would score 1 in the 5th as Newell would single to drive in Tillman Pugh. However in the bottom of the inning with Nate Hanson on first Mike Gilmartin would blast the first homer of the season to make it 6-1 St. Paul. Alex Gunn who replaced Rosario at P in the 6th would give up 2 runs in the 7th as Vavra singled to score both Hanson and Gilmartin making it 8-1 Saints but would be tagged out trying to advance to 2nd. Former Twins P Caleb Thielbar who would make his first apperence in his 2nd go around with the Saints, it would be relatively unsuccessful as he would allow 3 hits, 2 runs, while walking 1 and striking out no one in the 8th. With the Saints up 8-3 heading into the 9th Ryan Rodebaugh would take over for Thielbar and would strike out 2 out of 3 batters to finish the game. Hamburger would take his first win of the season and Rosario would be credited with the loss.

Game 2 of the series would see the Saints wearing special Ziggy Stardust jerseys as Robert Coe (LS-4) took the mound for The Good Guys starting his 5th season with the ballclub against Eric Eadington for the RailCats. Unlike game 1 this one would start with a BANG! right away in the 1st. As Jose Sermo would get an RBI Single to make it 1-0 Gary. But the Saints would make a bigger splash in the bottom of the 1st as Eadington (who pitched only a single inning in 2015) would walk the bases loaded and give up a run to Nate Hanson who reached on a Fielders Choice. The damage wasn't done as Thomas would drive in Willie Argo on an RBI Single, then after a strikeout he would walk in 2 more runs adding further fuel to the fire before throwing a wild pitch which allowed the runners to advance and a run to score. The inning would only end with Alonzo Harris grounding out with the Saints batting around, St. Paul would take a 5-1 lead out of inning 1. The next big change came in the 3rd with Kevin Osaki replacing Eric Eadington, who would finish with 2.0 IP walking 6 striking out 3 and allowing 5 runs on 1 hit. Another run wouldn't be scored until the Top 6th with 1 on and 2 down Cody Wheeler would replace Robert Coe as pitcher but on his first batter would allow an RBI Single making it 5-2, before allowing another single and walking Brennan Metzger to load the bases. He would make it out of the jam by striking out Hamilton. In the bottom of the 6th Tony Caldwell, on his second pitch, would blast a the Saints 2nd Home Run of the season on a shot to the porch in right field. In the 9th Andy Crawford, who was called on in the 8th, would strike out the first 2 batters before allowing a double and then an RBI Single to Elbert Devarie who would then steal 2nd before Marquis Riley would be walked. Ryan Rodebaugh would be called on to finish out his second straight game but would load the bases by hitting Newell on the first pitch. With the bases loaded and 2 down a wild finish ensued, Tillman Pugh would blast a shot off the wall into right field earning himself and RBI Triple, all the runners from Gary would try and make it home with Devarie and Riley scoring but RF Breland Almadova would use 2B Sam Maus as a cutoff man to get the ball just in time to the catcher Tony Caldwell to tag out the RailCats Cameron Newell to win the game 6-5. Robert Coe would take his first win on the season going 5.2 IP with 5 walks and 4 K's allowing 2 runs on 5 hits. Eadington would take the loss for the RailCats and Ryan Rodebaugh would get his 1st Save in 2016.

The Saints would be looking for a series victory coming into game 3 of 4 against the RailCats on Saturday night which was Star Wars night. With the Saints sending out Jeff Shield entering his 3rd season with the Saints against Karl Triana for Gary. Just like the night before the RailCats would score in the Top 1st to make it 1-0, however in the bottom of the inning against a man playing his first pro game since 2013 the Saints would make the RailCats pay scoring 4 runs. In the 2nd it would get even worse as St. Paul scored 7 runs to put the game to an 11-1 score. The 3rd inning would see that lead go up to 13-1 with back to back home runs by Angelo Songco and Nate Hanson, but Gary struck back with 3 runs of there own in the 4th making it 13-4. St. Paul would bring out the bats and make it 18-4 at the end of 6 including home runs by Angelo Songco (2nd of the game) and Tony Thomas in the 5th. Kody Knaus would come out to finish the game for St. Paul in his first pro appearance after graduating from Concordia-St. Paul in May, he would allow 4 runs but St. Paul would win the game 18-8 and go to 3-0 on the season. Jeff Shield would take the win for the Saints and the loss would go to Karl Triana for the RailCats.

Sunday evening the Saints would take the field looking to go 4-0 on the season on Dog Day at CHS Field. John Straka would take the mound for his first start of the season on the opposite side it would be Travis McGee starting for the RailCats. St. Paul would bring Gary down 1-2-3 and not allow a first inning run for the first time since Friday with Straka pitching 4 shutout and no hit innings, however that didn't slow down the Saints bats as they came out barking with 3 runs in the first. with Alonzo Harris (1st HR of 2016) and Nate Hanson (2nd HR of 2016) would each blast 3 run shots to make it a whopping 9-0 Saints after just 4 innings of play! Gary would bring in 4 in the top of the 5th inning as Tillman Pugh would put away a HR while Matt Hibbert would drive in 1 and Jeremy Hamilton would drive in another 2, but the Saints wouldn't make it easy as Alonzo Harris would get an RBI to make it 10-4 Saints after 5 full innings. The only other run scored for the night was in the 8th inning as Elbert Devarie would drive in a run for Gary to make it 10-5. A 10-5 series sweeping victory would wrap it all up at CHS Field as John Straka took the win (1-0) and Travis McGee the loss (0-1). Over the course of the 4 game series the Saints have drawn a grand total of 32,652 in the first 4 games of 2016 for an average of 8,163 per game!

The Saints 2016 campaign continues as they'll make there way to another 4-0 club and North Divsion rival the Sioux Falls Canaries. The 3 game series kicks off on Monday night at 7:05 PM at "The Birdcage" Sioux Falls Stadium in Sioux Falls, SD. Each game will begin at 7:05 and can be heard here on on the Official Radio Home of the St. Paul Saints "Club 1220" KLBB. Don't worry they won't be gone for long as the Saints return home for another 4 game stretch from Thursday-Sunday against the Kansas City T-Bones. Promos include Military Appreciation Night on Thursday, Friday Night Firework featuring the music of commercial jingles on Friday, Saturday is an Angry Bird helmet giveaway, and on Sunday the Saints will play One Last Purple Game in honor of the late great Prince, it will feature an all purple Fireworks Supershow with his music after the game. I thank you all for reading and until next time ALWAYS remember that Fun Is Good and GO SAINTS!

Pre-Season Update #3

Well the St. Paul Saints pre-season is over and the regular season starts Thursday night at home against the Gary SouthShore RailCats. The Saints have managed a few more moves since my last update in April. One of those was re-signing Angelo Songco, his contract was bought by the Dodgers however he was released by them shortly after and the Saints picked him back up. The Saints also managed a big trade in the last few days as Manager George Tsamis traded the rights for Brett Harper (who is currently in the Mexican League) to the Sioux City Explorers in return for a much needed starting pitcher in former Chaska High School start John Straka. Straka went 11-3 with a 3.27 ERA in 20 starts for the X's last season.

The Saints have finished there exhibition season, playing 3 Games against the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, 1 Game against the Metro-Minny All Stars, and 2 Games against the Sioux Falls Canaries. Opening up the exhibition schedule the Saints would meet the RedHawks at Bill Taunton Stadium in Willmar, MN (home of the Willmar Stingers of the Northwoods League) St. Paul would come away with a 3-2 win on that Sunday afternoon. On the following Thursday they would meet again at Bucky Burgau Field in Moorhead, MN (home of the Concordia College Cobbers of the NCAA Division III MIAC) but the Saints would drop the game to the home club 12-11. The following afternoon the clubs would meet at Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo and yet again the Saints would fall to the host club 8-2. On Saturday the Saints would meet the All Stars of the Amateur Metro-Minny League at Schumacher Field in Forest Lake, MN. St. Paul would use 4 pitchers that afternoon in Forest Lake and starter Robert Coe would pitch 6 innings and strike out a whopping 14 batters in the Saints 9-2 route of the Metro-Minny All Stars. St. Paul then finished out the season against the Sioux Falls Canaries and in game 1 on Monday Night in front of a crowd of 4,579 and took back a 5-1 win, and in the final game of the exhibition season the Saints would face Sioux Falls again in front a crowd a local school kids in a special 11:35 AM start time. The game would bring the Saints down 4-2 in the bottom of the 9th and end with a doozy as Alonzo Harris would smash a 3 run HR to win the game 5-4.

The Saints finish the exhibition season with a record of 3-3, Thursday Night at 7:05 against the Gary SouthShore RailCats begins the quest for the Saints to repeat as American Association North Division Champions. The Saints have won 5 division championships (Northern League 1997, 2000, and 2003 American Association 2006 and 2013) and 4 League championships (Northern League 1993, 1995, 1996, and 2004) in there 23 Year History. Be there Thursday Night when Year 24 begins. Always remember Fun Is Good and GO SAINTS!