Saints starter Aaron Rozek took the loss in the Saints’ 5-2 loss to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders on Sunday afternoon at CHS Field, but the 29-year-old Burnsville native was one of few bright spots for the home team on an otherwise gloomy day.

Rozek retired the first 10 batters he faced before a double and a single gave the RailRiders a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning. They proved to be the only batters to reach base in Rozek’s six innings of work.

It was a solid turnaround for left-hander, who was roughed up in his previous two outings. He gave up a career-high 10 hits and five runs in 4 2/3 innings against Indianapolis on August 15 and six runs — five earned — in four innings to open the homestand against the RailRiders.

“It’s always nice to give your team a shot at winning,” Rozek said. “That’s all you can ask for as a starter. Whatever the line is, as long as we’re in the ballgame, I did my job.”

Rozek entered the game with a 0-3 record and an earned-run average of 7.67. But his struggles didn’t lead to any drastic changes on Sunday, he said.

“I was more in the zone than Tuesday,” Rozek said. “A little more confidence, I guess. Pitching to contact is my game, and you can’t really shy away from that.”

But there are a couple of things he has been working on of late.

“Sweepers in the zone have been a difficulty since I’ve been up here, so honing in on that,” Rozek said. “And pitch quality. Not really (throwing to the) heart of the zone, but picking my
spots and throwing to those.”

Rozek, who was signed by the Twins as an undrafted free agent in June of 2021, is in his third stint with the Saints this season after starting the season at Double-A Wichita.

Asked if he felt Sunday was an important game for him, Rozek said, “Every game is important. You try not to fixate and let pass results linger. Every game is Game 1.”

Especially if the goal is to avoid another trip down to Double-A.

“You try to keep it out of the back of your mind,” Rozek said. “It’s always there, but it’s completely out of my hands. I try to control what I can control.”

Sunday’s start is something he can build on.

“There’s always learning points, good bad or ugly,” Rozek said. “So it’s diving deeper — maybe not today, but Monday and Tuesday — leading up to the next one. Seeing what I did well; seeing what I can work on.”

Rozek said he had approximately 10 family members and friends at the game. That’s down from the 50 who showed up when he had his Saints debut in April.

“We’ll always have family here,” Rozek said. “This is their first opportunity to see me pitch professionally. It’s always fun having them in the stands. It’s always fun to see familiar faces in the crowd. I had my high school head coach and high school pitching coach here the other week.”

Rozek pitched at Minnesota State-Mankato before turning to independent baseball following graduation in 2018. The Saints were an independent team at that time, and Rozek’s goal was to play for them.

Now, of course, the goal is to play for the Twins.

“It’s kind of come full circle,” Rozek said.

Briefly

Twins infielder Brooks Lee, on rehab assignment (right biceps tendinitis), had a pair of doubles and a single in four at-bats before leaving the game in the top of the eighth.

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BY: CHADWICK ROY
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: There has been much controversy surrounding Olympic Gold medalist Noah Lyles. Tyreek Hill thinks dusting him in a race will finally keep him quiet.

It started last year when Lyles claimed that the NBA can’t claim to be world champions. When asked about the Nuggets winning the NBA Finals last June, he questioned why the NBA is considered World Champions. What hurts me the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals and they have ‘World Champion’ on their head,” Lyles said. “World champion of what?”

Lyles’ comment caused a lot of controversy and started much talk. Lyles didn’t stop either, even leveling with the NFL, claiming they should not be considered World Champions either. Recently, NFL wide receiver Tyreek Hill tweeted on X, challenging Lyles to race this past Sunday. This is after Tyreek said that he could beat Lyles in a race; after saying he wasn’t impressed with Lyles’ performance in the Paris Olympics. “I would beat Noah Lyles,” he said. “I’m not going to beat him by a lot, but I would beat Noah Lyles. ”

Lyles called out Hill on Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson’s podcast, “Nightcap”, which led to Hill tweeting on X, officially challenging Lyles to a 50-yard dash. Lyles said we would accept Hill’s challenge, but it would have to be a “legit” race. Although Hill says he would beat Lyles in a 50-yard dash, Lyles wants a legit official 100-meter race.

MOORHEAD — For Joseph Akerman, a job well done means a client does not come back.

Akerman works as an employment specialist for the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans, or MACV, a nonprofit organization working to end veteran homelessness in Minnesota.

He recounted a time a veteran’s wife came back to thank him for helping her husband secure benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. While happy to hear a success story, Akerman’s goal is to help veterans get the support they need to get on their feet.

“Just based on the work I do, I hope I don’t hear from you again,” Akerman said.

Akerman and colleague Thomas Avegnon, housing stabilization case manager, work from Moorhead but assist homeless veterans in more than a dozen counties in the region. With offices around Minnesota, MACV is a piece of the puzzle in a network of organizations combating veteran homelessness in the state.

In the last decade, significant progress has been made toward ending veteran homelessness in Minnesota.

In 2010, a point-in-time count identified 644 homeless veterans, said Brad Lindsay, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs. In a 2023 count, that number dropped to 336.

Minnesota has 10 regional continuums of care, which are planning bodies that coordinate housing and funding for people experiencing homelessness. So far, eight of the 10 have declared an end to veteran homelessness. The remaining two are Hennepin County and Ramsey County.

‘Pulling everybody together’

Lindsay credits the progress to efforts that started around 2014. That year, the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs debuted its veteran homelessness registry, a by-name list of homeless veterans in Minnesota. Around the same time, it also began leading a coordinated effort to combat veteran homelessness in Minnesota.

“One of the big roles we took as an agency was the responsibility of pulling everybody together — the federal VA, us, all those stakeholders, all those homeless providers — and coordinating it,” Lindsay said.

With the help of the registry, organizations connect with each other to discuss the needs of individual veterans.

“Then one of those organizations, in most cases, or a couple of organizations, if needed, would then kind of be assigned to take that person and start working on getting them a housing plan,” Lindsay said.

June 2024 was the first time Minnesota’s homeless veterans registry dropped below 200 people.

Barriers to housing veterans have also been identified in the last decade, like affordable and available housing, Lindsay said. In response, the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs developed the Veteran Temporary Emergency Housing Assistance Program, which provides funding to put veterans in a hotel or other temporary housing while starting to work on a more permanent housing plan.

The Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs also provides landlords with financial incentives to house veterans and has awarded grants to other organizations, like MACV, to create housing specifically for veterans, Lindsay said.

Organizations working to end homelessness strive to reach the standard of “functional zero” for homelessness. The concept takes into account that people will still face homelessness, but with community systems making instances of homelessness rare and brief.

Statewide declaration goal in 2025

Hennepin County has met the benchmarks for functional zero for veteran homelessness and has submitted a request to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness to make an official declaration. Ramsey County is working toward that process, as well.

Lindsay said the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs hopes to move toward requesting a statewide declaration in late 2025, which would make Minnesota the fourth state in the country to end veteran homelessness.

The West Central Minnesota Continuum of Care declared an end to veteran homelessness in the region in 2017.

Today, Akerman and Avegnon are part of the system preventing veterans from becoming homeless and helping homeless veterans find swift assistance.

A big part of their jobs is outreach in west-central Minnesota. When they make contact with a veteran who is homeless or facing housing instability, Avegnon works to help them stabilize that housing. Akerman focuses on the employment aspect of housing, helping people build stable careers.

The pair also connects veterans with other organizations, like the Clay County Veterans Service Office, local shelters and organizations providing mental health and addiction counseling.

MACV only serves veterans in Minnesota, but in a region bordering North Dakota, Akerman and Avegnon sometimes connect with veterans across state lines. In that case, Akerman said, they direct veterans to the North Dakota organizations that can manage their cases long-term.

“We like to have them working with whichever agency can hang on to them the longest,” Akerman said.

At present, Moorhead has around six homeless veterans, said Akerman, but the number is a moving target. Homeless veterans tend to move around often, but the homeless veteran registry and collaboration help Akerman and Avegnon keep track of the veterans they are working with.

“It’s difficult, but because we work in coordination with other organizations, one of them will find them and hand them over to us, or we will find them and direct them somewhere,” Avegnon said.

Housing for All Veterans Act

Efforts are also being made at a national level to end veteran homelessness. In July, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., introduced the Housing for All Veterans Act. According to a press release from Smith’s office, the bill would provide housing vouchers to all low-income veteran households, protect veteran families from discrimination based on using a voucher and help public housing authorities electronically verify veteran status and lease rental units.

On Thursday, Aug. 8, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would award $20 million in funding to public housing agencies to help cover administrative fees for the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program. The program helps veterans find and maintain housing.

The Clay County Housing and Redevelopment Authority was among public housing agencies awarded funding, receiving $12,770, according to HUD.

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Zebby Matthews turned in the best start of his young career, Cole Sands allowed just one hit in his two innings on the mound and Griffin Jax made quick work of the Cardinals in the eighth inning on Sunday. The Twins appeared well on their way to a series-ending victory after Royce Lewis delivered a pinch-hit double in the bottom of the eighth inning to give them the lead back.

And then, things started to unravel.

With one out in the ninth, Edouard Julien slid and knocked down a ground ball, but it went off his glove and into the outfield. The very next batter, Brendan Donovan, hit a grounder to Julien, whose throw to second instead sailed into the left field, putting runners on second and third. The Cardinals then made the Twins pay with Lars Nootbaar’s two-run single leading St. Louis to a 3-2 win in the series finale at Target Field.

“First time that I’ve ever (missed) on a double-play throw arm side,” Julien said. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe my feet weren’t turned enough, but I usually do that. I don’t know. It just happened in a bad moment, I guess.”

After the error, Jhoan Duran struck out Cardinals (65-65) left fielder Tommy Pham, putting the Twins within an out of sealing the victory. That was the closest they got.

Nootbar swung at the first pitch of his at-bat and sent a single to left to put the Twins (72-58) down for the first time all day.

“We gave it to Duran. He gets a bunch of ground balls. He really didn’t do anything to hurt his cause, but sometimes you get a bunch of ground balls and you can lose the game,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It’s a play that Eddy’s going to make almost every time.”

Duran (6-7) surrendered three hits and two runs, both were unearned.

An inning earlier, it looked as if Lewis was going to play hero, hammering a JoJo Romero changeup to the warning track in left-center field to bring in Willi Castro and give the Twins the lead back.

The game had been tied since the fifth inning when Matthews, in the best start of his young career, allowed a home run to Victor Scott II with two outs in the inning. Matthews was sharp in his outing, striking out seven batters, including two in each of his first three innings of work in his outing.

“I definitely was happy with the performance out there,” he said. “I left a slider up in the fifth inning that Scott was able to put a barrel on, but for the most part, I executed the pitchers I wanted to.”

He nearly matched Cardinals starter Erick Fedde, who quieted the Twins for the third time this season. Fedde allowed just a home run to Castro, the first batter he faced in the first inning, before settling in and not giving another run in his six innings of work.

“He’s a difficult task,” Baldelli said. “He’s proven that.”

But while the Twins weren’t really able to solve Fedde, they did have themselves in position late to win a game and, for the third time in a week, saw a potential victory turn into a tough loss.

“We probably could have found ways to score some runs today and separate a little bit and give ourselves a little bit a cushion,” Baldelli said. “When you’re trying to hold it together and keep them from scoring for many innings, sometimes just putting balls in play will lead to wins.”

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