Louie Varland was supposed to start the Saints’ home opener on Tuesday, then it was pushed back to Wednesday because of the weather. Then on Wednesday, the weather pushed the opener to Thursday afternoon — and Varland’s next start to Friday.
Does that matter for a pitcher?
“Yeah, it matters,” Varland said. “I haven’t pitched in eight days.”
Translation: “Duh!”
Bailey Ober will start Thursday’s twice-postponed opener — weather permitting — for the Saints and Varland will have to wait until Friday to make his first start since a minor-league game late last month in Fort Myers, Fla. It’s not ideal, but Varland, 25, is accustomed to waiting.
After pitching in what he called the shadow of his brother, Gus, at North St. Paul High School, Varland followed Gus to Concordia-St. Paul, and it wasn’t his first choice.
“I didn’t want to follow up my brother and be overshadowed for another four years, like in high school,” Varland said Wednesday at CHS Field, where the Saints held an afternoon workout instead of preparing for Thursday’s 3:07 p.m. start. “I reached out to every other team and tried to play against him.”
That’s 15 teams, all the Northern Sun Conference teams not in St. Paul, from Minot, N.D., to Fayetteville, Iowa. None of them responded.
“I’m a year younger; (Gus) was always better,” Varland said. “Because he was older, he was just a better pitcher. I was in his shadow. He threw harder, he threw for strikes. He was just a stud.”
But Mark “Lunch” McKenzie, nearing the end of his 10-year run as Concordia’s baseball coach, liked what he saw in Louie — a big frame, a live fastball and a work ethic learned while he and his brother worked summers for their dad Wade’s sheetrock company, Varland Drywall.
“These kids, they worked,” McKenzie said. “They’d spend the offseason working with their dad. They were the hardest-working guys in the school. It was just their mentality; they were confident but had no ego. They were just regular guys and you get what you earn and there are no guarantees. But they just worked, went about their business, got good grades.”
And worked together. The brothers were competitive, but always supported one another. “I’d help him out, he’d help me out, in every sport,” Varland said. They talk every day, whether it’s by phone, text or remotely playing video games with one another.
Gus, 26, was drafted by the Oakland A’s in 2018, traded to the Dodgers, then picked up by Milwaukee in last year’s Rule 5 draft. He made the club out of training camp and through Tuesday had pitched two innings of scoreless relief for the Brewers.
Louie was selected by the Twins in the 15th round of the 2019 draft. He might have been out of his brother’s shadow, but it would be another three years — the first completely idled by the Coronavirus pandemic — before Varland would get to actually pitch against his brother.
Varland was with the Twins’ Class AA team in Wichita, his brother with the Dodgers’ Tulsa Drillers. For the record, Tulsa won the first game; Gus was the starter, Louie second in a bullpen game. Both started the second meeting, with Wichita coming out on top.
“It was awesome. It was a dream come true,” Varland said. “Not the ultimate dream because the ultimate dream is to pitch against him in the majors, or play on the same team in the majors.”
That may yet happen this season. While Varland didn’t make the Twins’ active roster out of camp, there is a good chance he appears with the big-league team in 2023. The 6-foot-1, 205-pound right-hander spent last September with the Twins and pitched well. He pitched at least five innings in five starts, fanned 21 in 26 innings and compiled a 3.81 earned-run average.
But he had to wait a little there, as well. He didn’t get his first major-league win until Oct. 5. a 10-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox. Varland pitched five scoreless innings, fanning five without a walk.
And if Varland is going to pitch in the bigs again this season, well, he’ll have to wait for that, too. The Twins have five quality starters in Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle, Joe Ryan and Kenta Maeda, and all of them left spring training healthy. But as anyone who paid close attention to the Twins last season knows, that can change in a hurry — and the Twins have a lot of quality arms in St. Paul, as well, high-end prospects Varland, Ober and Simeon Woods Richardson among them.
“Knowing that we have guys that we really like, that we think are going to be able to contribute to wins — not just to innings, but to wins — that’s important,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said as camp wound down in Fort Myers. “And I think we have that.”
The Twins are scheduled to play the Brewers on June 13-14 at Target Field, and Aug. 22-23 in Milwaukee.
“It is circled,” Varland said. “It’s completely out of my control, though. Just hoping.”
