2023 Season: Game 148 Recap \u2013 Sept. 24<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jair Camargo laughed when I asked him about fellow Saints catcher Chris Williams\u2019 special request of him last Wednesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust doubles and triples for the rest of the week,\u201d so that Williams could keep the team\u2019s triple-A season home run record of 21 that he had just set. Williams had just passed Brent Rooker for the most 4-baggers in St. Paul\u2019s three-year affiliation with the Minnesota Twins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI told Chris today that my family was here and they wanted me to get another one,\u201d Camargo said. \u201cSo I told Chris I\u2019ll talk to Toby (manager Toby Gardenhire) about getting you about another at-bat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there will not be another at-bat for anybody this year, as the Saints\u2019 season ended with a 3-2 loss to the Toledo MudHens yesterday (Sunday). After Camargo\u2019s 2-run blast in the 5th<\/sup> inning, he and Williams share the record of 21 home runs until at least next year \u2013 when both hope they won\u2019t<\/em> get another chance, as a result of making it to the big leagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Twins injury rehabber Byron Buxton\u2019s potential game-tying home run settled in the leftfielder\u2019s glove at the fence for the final out of the season, the Saints capped a season in which they finished second in both halves of the International League\u2019s West division (43-31, 41-33), and third overall in the IL (84-64) \u2013 5\u00bd games behind Norfolk of the Baltimore Orioles organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The kingpins of Major League Baseball really messed this season up by deciding there would be a two-team playoff in the International League, despite there being 20 teams in the league. (Imagine a major league season before the playoffs system began. Even if there were only four teams playing on this year, the Saints would have been one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the 2023 Saints season is in the books. Humans like the 6,003 (\u201cannounced\u201d attendance) on hand yesterday under 66-degree, partly-cloudy skies after Saturday night\u2019s rainout looked like they had a lot of fun watching the local lads perform this year while taking in the 30th<\/sup> year of independent, then minor league ball in St. Paul. (Be sure to watch the just-released Netflix documentary, \u201cSaint of Second Chances.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am grateful to have renewed my sportswriting chops after a 42-year hiatus chasing family and career interests. Thanks to Sean Aaronsen for the press pass and great window seat. I will continue posting occasionally on gzrnetwork.com (you can also look up \u201cBalls, Bats and Bases: St. Paul Saints Style\u201d). I\u2019m not sophisticated enough to have set up a feedback option on my blog, but you can email me at johnclinger@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2023 Season: Game 148 Recap \u2013 Sept. 24 Jair Camargo laughed when I asked him about fellow Saints catcher Chris Williams\u2019 special request of him last Wednesday night. \u201cJust doubles and triples for the rest of the week,\u201d so that Williams could keep the team\u2019s triple-A season home run record of 21 that he had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-saints"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":396,"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gzrnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}