2024 Season: Game 31 Recap – Sunday, May 5
A heavenly Sunday afternoon (sunny, 67 degrees, calm) was appropriate for Union Gospel Mission Day at CHS Field as the St. Paul Saints prepared to face the Louisville Bats in the finale of their 6-game homestand. St. Paul, the Minnesota Twins’ triple-A affiliate in the minor leagues, hoped to win the series and improve its position in the AAA International League West division.
Hopes were high for the locals, with rising Twins prospect David Festa on the mound after setting a franchise record with 10 strikeouts in his previous outing. (These records do not include the years 1995-2020 when the Saints were an independent team founded by Mike Veeck, Bill Murray, and Marvin Goldklang.)
Festa struck out 5 of the first 7 batters he faced. But other Louisville sluggers got to him for a pair of home runs and 5 runs total (all of them earned) as the Bats prevailed, 7-6, to split the 6-game series and drop the Saints to a 13-18 record in the 150-game regular season.
(The Saints moved on to Toledo for a 6-game series. They’re all 6 games long, with games played Tuesday through Sunday. As of today’s blog posting, the St. Paul nine have a single win in 3 tries and their record stands at 13-21.)
Louisville scored first in last Sunday’s (May 5) game when Rios hammered a changeup into the visitors’ bullpen in the middle of Festa’s 3-strikeout 2nd inning. The Bats added 3 more runs in the third, highlighted by a solo home run by Hernan Perez against his old team from last year. (The Twins released Perez last year and he signed with the Cincinnati Reds, Louisville’s parent club.)
The Saints came back to knot the score at 4-4 in the bottom half of the 3rd. Helman doubled to score Keirsey Jr., who had singled. Isola slammed a 3-run shot with Wallner (single) and Prato (double) aboard.
Festa continued to rack up strikeouts, but his day ended after 7 hits (including 2 home runs), 1 walk, and 8 whiffs when former teammate Perez belted a solo shot to left-center field to break the tie. The Bats increased the lead to 6-4 on a walk and 2 singles yielded by reliever Henriquez.
Henriquez served up a solo tater in the 5th to put the Bats up 7-4. He and subsequent relievers Topa, Balozovic and Staumont went on to double Festa’s 8-strikeout effort to make it a 16-whiff day for the Saints hurlers.
The local lads threatened to come back in the 8th after being held to five hits in the first 7 frames. They scored on a bases-loaded walk, but Wallner grounded out weakly to 1st base to thwart the effort. The Saints pulled within a run, 7-6, in their last at-bats on a sacrifice fly by Severino, but Williams struck out to send the 5,614 (announced crowd) Union Gospel Mission Day fans home, out of hope for a Saints victory but still basking in a glorious day.