Hot-hitting DaShawn Keirsey Jr. collects 3 hits in St. Paul Saints’ 8-2 rout of Iowa Cubs

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DaShawn Keirsey Jr. continued his hot hitting since returning to the St. Paul Saints from an injury, and he was joined by most of the Saints’ lineup in their 8-2 win over the Iowa Cubs on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa.

Keirsey went 3 for 4 with a double and an RBI, raising his average this season to .316. He returned to the Saints on June 22 after missing nearly a month with a calf injury and has had a hit in all seven games since, including four multi-hit games. The center fielder, who was drafted in the fourth round in 2018 by the Twins, is hitting .394 (13 for 33) in those seven games and has a 13-game hitting streak overall.

One night after Keirsey’s two hits were the Saints’ only hits in an 8-1 loss to the I-Cubs, eight of the nine hitters in the St. Paul lineup recorded hits, and six drove in runs.

Edouard Julien and Yunior Severino each had two hits, Chris Williams hit his fifth home run of the season, and Brooks Lee and Anthony Prato had doubles.

All that offense backed one of the best pitching performances of the season for Gus Varland. The former North St. Paul and Concordia-St. Paul standout pitched five scoreless innings, allowing four hits while striking out seven and walking two.

The performance stopped a stretch of rocky outings by Varland. He had allowed four runs or more in six of his previous nine outings and last Sunday had allowed 11 earned runs on 11 hits in 2 1/3 innings against Toledo.

Josh Winder followed Varland and allowed two runs on three hits with four strikeouts over two innings. Ryan Jensen pitched a scoreless eighth, striking out one and walking two, and Jeff Brigham struck out the side in the ninth to finish the game.

The Saints scored a run in the first and another in the second before breaking things open with a four-run fourth inning. Prato drove in a run with a double and then scored on a single by Julien. Following a single by Matt Wallner, Severino hit a two-out single to left field to score Julien from third. Keirsey followed with a single to score Wallner.

After winning three of the first five games of the series, which opened the second half of the American Association’s International League season, the Saints will go for a series win in the final today which starts at 1 p.m.

 

Willi Castro’s versatility lands him in small club

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SEATTLE — The Twins are well aware of how valuable Willi Castro and his versatility are to them.

But how’s this for a stat to actually quantify it: per MLB Network research, when Castro manned second base on Saturday, he became just the third player in Major League Baseball history with at least 20 appearances at five different positions in the same season.

He joins Zach McKinstry, who did it last year for Detroit, and Tony Phillips, who accomplished the feat in 1992. And one of those “positions” for Phillips was designated hitter.

McKinstry, who did it last year, took nearly the entire season to do so, playing his 20th game at shortstop on Sept. 20, Game 152 of the season.

It took Castro just 83 games.

“We’re only halfway through the season, so I wonder what he’s actually going to accomplish by the end of the year, but we know what we have in Willi,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We know how fortunate we are and how much he helps us as a team.”

Castro handled third base duties when Royce Lewis went down, shortstop when Carlos Correa got injured, center field when Byron Buxton went on the injured list and now he’s mostly been playing second since the Twins optioned Edouard Julien to Triple-A. He’s also been in the mix in left field, the position he’s been at the most, appearing there in 22 games heading into Saturday’s tilt.

“They’re going to use me wherever they need me and I will get the job done,” Castro said earlier this month. “They believe in me a lot and I just try to do my best every time I play those positions.”

Snack time

You never quite know what you’re going to see when you walk into a major league clubhouse.

On Saturday, it was a plate of toasted grasshoppers with a chili-lime seasoning, which are a popular concession item at T-Mobile Park. They were there for any player, coach or staff member brave enough to try one.

Most stayed away.

Correa, who said he had eaten one in the past, tried to prod some of his teammates into snacking on one but had little success.

“Margot’s the No. 1 eater in this clubhouse,” Correa yelled across the room.

“I’m full,” Manuel Margot responded.

“No chance,” Jhoan Duran said.

“I’m good,” Christian Vázquez replied.

Relievers Kody Funderburk and Josh Staumont, starter Chris Paddack and utilityman Austin Martin were among those who ate one.

Joe Ryan, after some encouragement from Staumont — who ate multiple of them and said he enjoyed them — picked one up, smelled it and then flung the insect across the room into a trash can.

Briefly

The Twins’ nine-game, 10-day road trip will come to a conclusion on Sunday when Joe Ryan takes the mound against Luis Castillo. Ryan gave up four runs in six innings pitched the last time out against the Diamondbacks. He did not face the Mariners earlier this season. Castillo gave up three runs — two earned — in 6 2/3 innings against the Twins in May.

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Celebrity chef Justin Sutherland arrested on suspicion of domestic assault, threats of violence Friday

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Celebrity chef Justin Sutherland was arrested in St. Paul on Friday night on suspicion of domestic assault and felony threats of violence, police said.

Shortly after 8 p.m. Friday, officers were called to an address in the 800 block of Front Avenue in St. Paul after receiving reports a man with a gun was outside the address. When officers arrived, they spoke to a man and woman. The man, identified as Sutherland, 39, was arrested and booked at the Ramsey County jail on suspicion of felony domestic assault and felony threats of violence, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, spokesman for the St. Paul Police Department.

“Our investigators will be working to determine the circumstances that led to this arrest being made. When we have those details, we will share them,” he said. Police will present a case to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office for charging consideration, according to Ernster.

Sutherland remained in jail as of Saturday afternoon.

The St. Paul chef has been featured on “Iron Chef,” “Fast Foodies,” “Top Chef,” “Taste the Culture” and a judge on several other food-focused TV shows and talk shows such as “Good Morning America.” He is a Food Network “Iron Chef” winner and season finalist on “Top Chef.” He also is the author of a cookbook, “Northern Soul,” and won an Emmy for “Taste the Culture.”

He opened his first restaurant, Handsome Hog, in St. Paul’s Lowertown. Sutherland is no longer affiliated with that restaurant but owns Big E, an egg sandwich shop on Grand Avenue.

Earlier this year, he announced he was going to help reopen the beloved Rondo community restaurant Golden Thyme Coffee and Cafe. Sutherland and his dad, Kerry Sutherland, are partnering with the nonprofit Rondo Community Land Trust to open the restaurant.

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U.S. Olympic Trials: Shane Wiskus shocked to be left off 2024 men’s gymnastics team

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Shane Wiskus has been demonstrably excited this week in Minneapolis, not just because he was back in his home state, but also because the former Gophers All-American was at his best in the U.S. men’s gymnastics Olympic trials.

“I had the best two days of competition in my life,” he said.

Wiskus was performing so well that after sticking the landing on his last event, the parallel bars, he let loose with his most emotional celebration of many over the two days of competition, imploring an already loud partisan crowd to make even more noise.

The performance sealed his third-place finish in the all-around competition and, Wiskus thought, his spot on the five-man team that will travel to Paris for the Summer Games next month. Roughly 45 minutes later, the rug was pulled out from under him.

“I feel like I deserved it,” Wiskus said.

Frederick Richard, a sophomore NCAA champion from Michigan, won the all-around competition with a total score of 170.500 and the automatic Olympic qualification that goes with it. Stanford’s Brody Malone finished second with 170.300 points, and Wiskus was next with 169.850. Wiskus was later named an alternate to the team headed to Paris.

Oklahoma’s Paul Juda (168.850) and Stanford’s Asher Hong (167.650) placed fourth and fifth and made the team, as well. The wild card pick was Wiskus’ EVO Gymnastics teammate Stephen Nedoroscik, a pommel horse specialist who had the event’s second-best score on that apparatus, a combined 29.300.

“I always had it in my head that there was a chance, that there was a chance because I can do a really good score for Team USA on an event that maybe they need,” said Nedoroscik, 25. “So, my single score on that one event adds more to a team than perhaps someone who does multiple events.

“It was always in my head, I just knew it was going to be really hard.”

The U.S. men haven’t won an individual Olympic medal since Danell Leyva won silver in the parallel bars and horizontal bars, and Alexander Naddour won bronze in the pommel horse, in Rio De Janeiro in 2016. The men haven’t won a team medal since a bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games.

“You can expect, from me and the team, some medals in Paris,” said Frederick, who became the youngest man to win the U.S. trials since Steve Hug, also 20, in 1972.

Khoi Young, who placed 15th in the all-around this week but was the all-around bronze medalist at the U.S. Championships in May, joins Wiskus as the other alternate.

Wiskus, 25, didn’t make the 2023 U.S. Championships team, and pulled out of the 2023 Pan American Games because of injuries. But he had bounced back, winning silver in the all-around, and bronze in the floor and high bar, at the 2024 Winter Cup.

At Target Center this week, he had the top composite score on the floor exercise (28.95) and was second in the horizontal bar (29.000). Asked how he felt after learning he wasn’t being selected for the team, he said, “Numb.”

He said performing at home again — he was a three-time NCAA champion at the U — was special. He had cheering sections throughout the arena on Saturday, some holding large cardboard cutouts of his face, some re-enacting a clapping routine for the vault that Wiskus and teammates did during their college days.

“I’ll remember this experience for the rest of my life,” he said. “It’s probably the last gymnastics meet of my life, and what better way to end (than) at home with two of the best competitions of my entire life.”

“I had a lot of family, a lot of friends out there,” he added, “and I just hope my made them proud. It was a hell of a ride.”