Wallner ties Saints record as St. Paul survives Toledo 10-9 in wild finish
Matt Wallner tied the Saints’ career homer mark, then St. Paul survived a 19-hit mess to beat Toledo 10-9. A relay at the plate and Trent Baker’s strikeout finished the job.
Matt Wallner kept St. Paul from ever falling behind, and a sharp relay at the plate kept Toledo from stealing it away at the end. The Saints beat the Mud Hens 10-9 at Fifth Third Field in Toledo, Ohio, on Friday night, surviving a game that looked nothing like a routine Triple-A box score.
Wallner opened the scoring with a two-run homer in the first inning, his seventh blast of the season and the 48th of his Saints career. That tied Chris Williams for the Triple-A franchise record and gave St. Paul an early jolt in a series that had already swung wildly between dominance and desperation. The Saints had scored in four of the first five innings by the time the offense finally settled in, and every Toledo push seemed to get answered before the home side could fully take control.
Even with the win, St. Paul spent most of the night in survival mode. The Saints allowed 19 hits, tied for the second most in franchise history, never retired Toledo in order and gave up runs in six of nine innings. Toledo kept putting traffic on the bases and kept forcing St. Paul to work, but the Saints did just enough to keep the lead from slipping away for good.
The ninth inning brought the biggest scare. Toledo put runners on, and Max Clark, the 21-year-old Detroit Tigers first-round pick and a top prospect, tried to create one last tying chance. St. Paul answered with a perfectly executed relay that cut down the potential tying run at the plate, and Trent Baker finished the job by striking out Gage Workman. Tyler Gentry’s four-hit night for Toledo, including two doubles and a run-scoring hit, showed how much pressure the Saints were under even in victory.
For Minnesota, the night mattered most because Wallner kept adding to a case that is getting harder to ignore. The Saints improved to 37-29 and finished a series that had already included a 12-1 win over Toledo on June 10, when they hit four homers off Justin Verlander, and a 1-0 win on June 11. This one was the messiest of the three, but it may have been the most revealing: Wallner’s bat stayed loud, and St. Paul found just enough late-game defense to turn chaos into a win.
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