One of the unique things about Class A minor league baseball is the season is divided into two halves.

The format allows teams, such as the Kernels, that have strong first halves of the season to qualify for postseason play at the mid-point of the campaign. It also gives teams that struggle early a chance to start over with a clean slate for the second half.

The format benefits teams that experience significant roster turnover that’s common among Class A affiliated clubs.

Sometimes, it also allows players that get off to a slow start to start over and salvage their seasons, not to mention their prospect status in the eyes of the organizational scouts that will largely determine their futures in professional baseball.

Cedar Rapids Kernels pitcher Hudson Boyd is one such player who has benefited from the chance to demonstrate improvement and versatility in the second half of the Kernels’ 2013 season.

Boyd was selected in 2011 by the Minnesota Twins as a supplemental first-round pick drft (55th overall) following his senior year of high school at Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers, Fla. He had a scholarship offer to play baseball at the University of Florida, but ultimately signed with the Twins for a reported $1 million bonus and reported for his first season of professional baseball in 2012 at the Twins’ spring training facility in his home town of Fort Myers.

The right-hander weighed 275 pounds the summer after graduating from high school in 2011, according to one Fort Myers media report. The Twins made no secret of their feelings that Boyd would need to work himself into better shape to survive the long seasons inherent in professional baseball, and Boyd had already trimmed several pounds by the time he was pitching for Elizabethton a year ago for the Twins' Rookie level team there.

This spring, Boyd was listed at just 225 pounds spread over his 6-foot2 frame when he opened the season in the Kernels’ starting rotation. The new look didn’t translate in to instant success, however.

In the first half of the season, Boyd posted a 1-4 record for the Kernels in 12 starts with a 6.56 ERA. Hitters knocked Boyd around to the tune of a .284 batting average.

“Yeah, I think I got a little too obsessed with (dropping weight),” Boyd said. “I think I was a little too light. I noticed my fastball (velocity) starting to drop.”

In his first start of the second half of the season, on the road against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Boyd went just five innings, giving up five earned runs on eight hits, while walking six batters and striking out just one. While Boyd was credited with the win as the Kernels topped Wisconsin 13-9, he was pulled from the rotation after that game and began working out of the Cedar Rapids bullpen.

Since that time, in 11 relief appearances covering 21 1/3 innings, Boyd has compiled a 1.69 ERA out of the bullpen, while striking out 16 hitters and holding batters to a .208 batting average. That turnaround alone would be quite a story, but the story doesn’t end there.

With several of the Kernels’ starting pitchers nearing innings limits imposed by the Twins organization, the club’s pitching coach, Gary Lucas, has been faced with a need to pull some of the those pitchers from the rotation as the regular season winds to a close. That meant Lucas would need some members of his bullpen to replace those starters in the rotation.

Boyd got the news a couple of weeks ago that he was going to be re-inserted into the starting rotation. The news came as a bit of a surprise, according to Lucas, but Boyd has taken the switch in stride.

“Whatever gives us the best chance to win,” Boyd said, “I was down with that.”

His first game back in the rotation was a forgettable effort where he failed to survive the third inning, but since that game, he’s steadily improved.

On Friday, Boyd threw seven strong innings against the Quad Cities River Bandits, the team the Kernels will be facing in the first round of the Midwest League playoffs beginning Wednesday, Sept. 4. Boyd gave up just three runs on four hits and a pair of walks, while striking out four.

He seemed more comfortable than he was during most of his early-season starts.

“I was able to get through seven, which was nice. Just trying to throw a lot more strikes than I was early in the year,” he said.

Boyd indicated he also has made some adjustments to his preparation process. “Being in the bullpen, I think I learned some things I didn’t really need to do. I kind of have a better routine and it hasn’t been that big of an adjustment to get back into it.”

Boyd has been on the Kernels’ roster since Opening Day in April and, as has been the case with most of his teammates, he was quick to praise the local fan base.

“It’s been pretty nice. The fans up here are great,” said Boyd. “They’ve been really supportive of our team all year, so it’s been pretty fun to see the big packed crowds we get. I’ve definitely pitched in front of more people up here than I ever have in my life. So it’s been a fun year.”

Still, nobody could fault Boyd for being anxious for a promotion to the Class High-A Fort Myers Miracle. Everyone likes the look of the next rung on the organizational ladder, but that’s particularly the case when the next rung means getting to play in your home town.

“Yeah, the next step up for us is where I’m from,” Boyd admitted. ”It’s where I live in the off-season. So, the next step up, I’ll just be going home.”

Don’t look for Boyd to drop more weight as he prepares for next year, however. In fact, Boyd may look to put back some of the weight he shed a year ago.

If he does add weight, it will be, “good weight,” assured Boyd. “I’m more looking to put it on in my legs than anything - just trying to get a lot stronger in my legs.”

This has been the 20-year-old’s first exposure to a full season of professional baseball, giving Boyd a sense of what his body needs to be prepared to endure. “Now, I know what it feels like in August, so I have something to prepare for,” he said.

It certainly has not been the kind of season a consensus top-20 Twins prospect might have been wishing for coming into the season, but he’s accomplished at least one of his goals.

Boyd’s fastball has always been highly regarded and scouts have rated his breaking ball as potentially a “plus” pitch, but coming into the year, he was determined, in his words, “to have a better changeup than I did last year. I feel like I reached that one. I feel like I’ve got a pretty good changeup now.”

Adding an effective third pitch to his repertoire is important for any pitching prospect, but critically important for a pitcher with designs on being a future member of a Major League starting rotation.

Of course, there are some goals Boyd hasn’t attained. Coming into the season, he hoped to throw about 130 innings during the year, “but I don’t think I’m going to get there,“ he said.

“One of the goals I had was to throw a complete game. That’s still attainable.”

But then there’s the big goal.

“Hopefully, we’ll win the championship,” he Boyd. “That will be three rings in three years for me.”

Boyd is among a number of Kernels players this season that were part of the Appalachian League championship team at Elizabethton last year. The year before that, Boyd’s high school team won the Florida state championship.

Boyd pitched his team through the semifinal game and into the championship. In the finals, Boyd found another way to contribute.

“Won it on a walk-off. I had the walk-off,” he said with a smile.

So if fate found Boyd pitching for a National League team someday, would he look forward to an opportunity to swing the bat again?

“As long as they only throw fastballs. I wasn’t too fond of those curveballs.”

Boyd said he'd like to get a chance to start in the postseason, yet added, “but if they move me back to the bullpen, I’m comfortable doing that, too.”