Mud Hens top Saints 5-3 behind Julks and Jung homers

Corey Julks and Jace Jung turned a wet night at Fifth Third Field into more than a routine Triple-A win. Their home runs carried Toledo past St. Paul 5-3 on Thursday, pushing the Mud Hens to 5-7 and giving Detroit another look at a left-side bat that keeps pressing for attention.

The Saints struck first after Orlando Arcia doubled and Eric Wagaman drove him in, but Julks answered in the third with the first home run by a Mud Hens hitter at Fifth Third Field this season. That blast tied it 1-1 and changed the mood in a game played through rain, one that came in the middle of a six-game series and one night after the teams slogged through 13 innings.

Toledo then broke the game open in the fifth with the kind of rally that shows up on a manager’s good-night list. Julks reached when a single bounced off the pitcher and second baseman, Cal Stevenson followed with a hit, Max Burt doubled in the go-ahead run, Ben Malgeri drew a walk and Max Clark delivered a two-run double for a 4-1 lead. Against a young St. Paul staff, the inning was less about one swing than about a lineup stringing together contact, pressure and extra bases until the inning bent.

Jace Jung added the swing that made the separation stick. His sixth-inning homer, his first of the season, pushed Toledo in front 5-2 and kept the spotlight where it belongs: on a player whose production is beginning to look less like a short Triple-A surge and more like a real roster-pressure story. Julks finished 2-for-3 with a homer, an RBI, two runs and a walk. Jung went 1-for-3 with a homer, an RBI and a walk. For Detroit, that is not just noise from Toledo. That is a corner-infield bat giving the front office something to weigh.

Ty Madden gave Toledo the foundation to cash in those runs. He worked five innings, allowed three hits, one run and one walk, and struck out five as he settled in. Drew Sommers, Jack Little, Tyler Mattison and Burch Smith handled the rest, with Smith collecting his first save of the season.

St. Paul got a solid four innings from John Klein, identified by the Saints as one of their Top 30 prospects, but the five-hit fifth blew the game open. In a rain-softened, 8 1/2-inning game, Toledo got just enough from its rotation and just enough thunder from Julks and Jung to make the final margin feel bigger than the score.