If the Saints are any indication, Major League Baseball hit a home run in electing to go to a full-time challenge system on balls and strikes in Triple-A games for the remainder of the season.

Starting next Tuesday, the fully automated ball-strike system (ABS) that has been used for half the games will be eliminated. Each team will be allowed two challenges, which is one less than has been available to date. A successful challenge does not cost a team a challenge.

“Everybody loves it,” Saints pitcher Louie Varland said Thursday night at CHS Field prior to the Saints taking an 8-4 lead over Toledo into the eighth inning. “Everybody wants the challenge system instead of half and half with ABS.

“The challenge system is going to make baseball way better. It’s basically a balance of old school and new school, and at the end of the day you want the right calls to be made.”

Pitcher Brent Headrick professed his love for the challenge system and said Twins pitchers who have been on rehab assignments with the Saints quickly became fans, too.

“The zone is definitely tighter with the ABS,” Headrick said, “so they weren’t getting calls they usually got in the big leagues. But pitchers love the challenge system; they can’t wait to use it.”

While Headrick said the challenge system is fair for hitters and pitchers, he feels there are some pitches — such as a backup slider up in the zone — that could clip the zone and register as a strike.

Veteran utility man Tony Kemp, who joined the Saints early in the season after being designated for assignment by the Baltimore Orioles, has been exposed to the challenge system for the first time.

“I’m happy that it will be in the big leagues at some point,” Kemp said. “We, as hitters, work our butts off to know the strike zone’s ins and outs. There have been times in my career when it’s 3-2 (count), the balls off the plate and it’s called a strike, that I wish I could have challenged.

“Instead of going to the ABS, you need to keep an umpire back there. But they need to do a better job of guys being accountable, and I think this is going to be a way umpires can be held accountable.”

Saints shortstop Brooks Lee, who hit a pair of home runs on Thursday, considers himself an “ultra-aggressive” hitter, so he said the change
won’t affect him as much as some other players.

“I try not to get to two strikes,” he said. “I swing a lot, so I don’t get strikes called on me a lot. But it definitely will be good for guys who are more patient.”

Saints manager Tony Gardenhire said he has preferred the challenge system from the start. “Going from three to two is going to be an adjustment,” he said. You’re going to have to be more careful in how you use them.”

Gardenhire said that while he allows his pitchers to challenge a call, he prefers that the decision comes from his catcher. “Catchers are really good at knowing the zone,” he said.

Catchers also have become adept at “framing” pitches, which has allowed them to steal strikes by fooling the umpire, which is another reason why Gardenhire prefers that his catcher make the challenge.

“Our catchers are so good at moving the ball that sometimes our pitchers think it’s a strike,” Gardenhire said, “and the catcher knows it’s not. So I tell our pitchers not to call it, because sometimes they get caught up in some emotions.

“But every once in a while they get one right, so they’re quick to say that they get to do it again.”

Briefly

Lee, who has been on a tear at the plate of late, made his first start of the season at second base. If the Twins elect to call him up this season, he likely would see time at second, with Carlos Correa entrenched at shortstop and Royce Lewis at third.

Matt Wallner hit his 17th home run of the season in the first inning.

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