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 Toledo all the more surprising was that Varland was coming off two solid outings with the Twins — one as a starter and one out of the bullpen. Once again, he chalked it up to, “That’s baseball,” but Varland knows he will be well served to find some consistent success.

The best way to do that, he said, is to learn from the bad and stay focused on doing the things needed to allow him to continue to improve.

Varland has worked with coaches this season and last to develop new pitches while fine-tuning others. His current repertoire includes five pitches: cutter, four-seam fastball, changeup, curveball and an occasional two-seam fastball.

Varland said he doesn’t have a pitch he considers his best, although his fastball reaches the high 90s. He said he typically throws his fastball 30% of the time.

“I’m going to throw every pitch every game,” Varland said. “It depends on the lineup and what the hitters struggle with.”

Varland has made 28 career appearances with the Twins, including 20 starts. It remains to be seen if his future is as a starter or a reliever.

“I think what’s best for the Twins (right now) is backing up starting pitching,” Varland said. “That’s why I’m at Triple-A, to be built up as a starter. I think everybody knows what I can do out of the ’pen,” referring to last year.

“So that can happen at any time. But the most important thing to help the team is starting pitching.”

It will be a win-win if he can get himself straightened out. He might even have something to say about it.

Briefly

Saints pitchers gave up a season-high 24 hits after allowing 20 on June 23. Infielder Diego Castillo pitched the ninth and gave up a grand slam.

The Stripers started the fifth inning with six consecutive hits against Saints starter Caleb Boushley and reliever Scott Blewett en route to a five-run inning.

Left-handed reliever Aaron Rozek, a Burnsville native, was called up from Double-A Wichita.

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