WORTHINGTON — Baseball season for Minnesota West started nearly a month ago, and the Bluejays are already showing they’re a team that can win.
Winning is the bottom line for head coach Joe Kinley and his team is 7-10 through a non-conference plate that included trips to Arizona, Iowa and South Dakota. After starting 1-8, the Jays turned it around and won six of their last eight before their first home doubleheader.
After their Friday home opening games with M State Fergus Falls and then a road trip to St. Cloud Technical April 2, the Jays open Minnesota College Athletic Conference south division play April 5-6 in a four game series with Century College.
“Our goal is to win, that's just plain and simple,” Kinley said. “We're going to show up every day and put our best foot forward and try to win every game. We want to be at the top of the conference.”
Kinley’s team will look to do that thanks to a roster of 33 total players with a mix of local and international talent. It features 11 sophomores, eight returners and three newcomers.
One of the top returning sophomores is Haruta Endo from Yokohama, Japan. Endo leads the team this year in at bats (60), runs scored (21), hits (29) and batting average (.483). He also was the MCAC south division baseball position player of the week last week.
Other sophomore returning position players include Arturo Jimenez, with 10 hits on the season in 12 games and Andy Emiliano, with two hits in six at bats.
Some standout freshman position players Kinley mentioned were shortstop Manny DuoJie from Qinghai, China, catcher Shahir Brahim from Buenos Aires, Argentina and John Perez from Queens, New York among many others that have already made an impact this year.
Cayden Von Eye is second on the team in batting average (.452) in 12 games and Eliecer Gonzalez is second with 19 hits in 15 games. Incoming sophomore Johnny Ramsey has been the team’s best power hitter with three home runs and a .679 slugging percentage.
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“It's really just kind of been done through relationships these last three years,” Kinley said about building his roster. “I got in contact with an academy in Columbia, that's kind of where it started. And then guys had positive experiences and more kids came. Last year we had Axell (Espino) and Fernando (Marte), they came from a post grad in Springfield, Massachusetts. They played great, they ended up getting full ride scholarships to their four year schools, so then they sent us four more players this year.”
Kinley’s roster also has a nice group of local players, especially on the pitching staff. Worthington High School grads Triston Sauerbrei and Tucker Brandner are the team’s two leaders in strikeouts.
Sauerbrei is a returning sophomore with 20 strikeouts and Brandner is a newcomer with a team leading 27 strikeouts and a 2.70 earned run average. Sophomore Conner Eich is another key pitcher that came back and he has struck out 17 this year.
Keaton Husband and Alonso Garcia have been active pitchers this year with both pitching more than 10 innings so far. Husband has 14 strikeouts and a 3.72 ERA and Alonso’s ERA is 3.86.
“Our pitching staff is very good, and we have the talent and the ability to score runs, you know, we just have to play well,” Kinley said.
Minnesota West is coming off a 14-22 season last year with a 5-12 record in conference play. The Bluejays are a bit bigger in numbers this year and Kinley believes his team has the talent to compete with the top teams in the MCAC south.
“I think we just need to have the mentality that the job’s not done, and we need to really understand that we have to put in the work and grind every game,” Kinley said. “You have the mentality of winning every inning, every pitch, and really just having that energy and that intent is super important.”
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