Saints starting pitcher Louie Varland is a reluctant interview these days. The 26-year-old right-hander’s responses to questions are as brief as they are guarded. No offense should be taken.
Nor, for near certainty, is any offense intended. The St. Paul native simply is more interested in finding answers in a season with more than its share of ups and downs, and spending a lot of time talking about it in the media probably doesn’t seem to him to be a good use of his time or energy.
Varland enters Thursday’s start at CHS Field with a 3-6 record and an earned-run-average of 6.56. He’ll make his 11th start of the season for the Saints with some momentum, having blanked the Iowa Cubs over five innings in his last start.
His last start at CHS Field, however, was a disaster. He gave up 11 earned runs on 11 hits in 2 1/3 innings against Toledo on June 23. Varland left the ballpark without making any comment and acknowledged on Wednesday prior to the Saints’ 21-6 loss to the Gwinnett Stripers that the rough outing indeed weighed heavily on him.
“It sucks; it’s not what you want at all,” Varland said. “Any competitive baseball player, it’s going to weigh a lot on them.” Varland said he entered his start against Iowa with the mindset that he couldn’t wait to put the previous outing behind him.
His success raised the question of what he changed from one start to the next. “Nothing,” Varland said, adding, “That’s baseball.” What made the start against To.
