Cedar Rapids Kernels Baseball

Montanez pitches Kernels to 5th straight win

PEORIA, Ill. – Josue Montanez led the Kernels to their fifth straight win with a 3-1 victory at Peoria on Sunday evening.

The Kernels have won 10 of their last 11 games and stretched their lead in the Midwest League's Western Division to 5.5 games over Quad Cities.

Montanez (5-5) went a season-high 7.2 innings and allowed only one run on seven hits.  He struck out four and walked one.  He has pitched at least seven innings in three straight starts.

Mike Gonzales put the Kernels in front 1-0 with a solo home run to right-center field in the fourth inning.  It was the second homer of the season for Gonzales and his second against Peoria Chiefs pitching.  Gonzales went deep against the Chiefs on July 24 for his other long ball.

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Kernels place Polanco on DL

The Cedar Rapids Kernels and Minnesota Twins announced Sunday that infielder Jorge Polanco has been placed on the 7-day disabled list, retroactive to August 16, with a right groin strain. Brad Steil, Director of Minor League Operations for the Twins, announced the move.

Polanco has played in 111 games for the Kernels this season, batting .307 with four home runs, 76 RBI and 31 doubles. The Twins signed Polanco as a non-drafted free agent on July 6, 2009, and he spent last season at Elizabethton where he hit .318 with five home runs and 27 RBI in 51 games.

With today’s transaction, the Kernels roster is at 24 players, one below the Midwest League limit.

Kernels notch 9th win in last 10 games

PEORIA, Ill. - The Cedar Rapids Kernels scored five runs over the fourth and fifth innings and rolled to their ninth win in 10 games, downing the Peoria Chiefs, 6-1, Saturday night before a crowd of 6,166 at Dozer Park.

Max Kepler hit his eighth home run and also doubled to spearhead the Kernels' 10-hit attack. Joel Licon had a single, stretching his hitting streak to 15 games.

Hudson Boyd (4-4) pitched five innings of four-hit ball and allowed one run to pick up the win.

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Record crowd sees Kernels trim Beloit

The Cedar Rapids Kernels and Iowa Hawkeyes turned out to be a winning combination at Veterans Memorial Stadium Friday night.

Toss in some post-game fireworks, always a popular attraction, and the result was the biggest crowd since the stadium opened in 2002.

The Kernels nipped the Beloit Snappers, 6-5, in front of 5,879 fans on Hawkeye Sports Sports Night (and Daddy-Daughter Date Night) at the ballpark.

The turnout snapped the previous record crowd of 5,861 set on July 7, 2002.

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Kernels activate Gonzales from DL

The Cedar Rapids Kernels and Minnesota Twins announced Friday that infielder Mike Gonzales has been activated from the 7-day disabled list. Brad Steil, Director of Minor League Operations for the Twins, announced the move.

Gonzales was placed on the DL on Aug. 4 with right wrist tendonitis. He joined the Kernels on July 20 and is batting .220 with a home run and four RBI in 11 games. The Twins selected him in the ninth round of the 2008 First Year Player Draft out of Diablo Valley College and he spent last season at Fort Myers where he hit .244 with six home runs and 27 RBI in 72 games.

Gonzales is active and available for Friday night’s game with Beloit. The Kernels' roster is at the Midwest League maximum of 25, with two players on the disabled list.

Walker's hit lifts Kernels in 9th

For the second straight night, the Cedar Rapids Kernels showed their flare for the dramatic, beating the Beloit Snappers 6-5 on a walk-off double by Adam Brett Walker.

The crowd of 2,714 at Veterans Memorial Stadium saw Walker lace a line drive to centerfield that got past the diving effort of Beloit's Dayton Alexander. Niko Goodrum scampered home from second base with the game-winning run.

“I was looking for a fastball over the plate, something up,” explained Walker after the game. “I got a pitch out over the plate and was able to hit it in to center. Just tried to get a base hit and it won a ballgame.”

Walker, who leads the minor leagues in RBIs with 104, had several earlier opportunities to put the Kernels on the board. He went to the plate three times in the first eight innings with runners in scoring position, leaving the runners where they stood in each instance.

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Atherton sharp in Kernels win

For much of the first half of the season, it seemed like the Cedar Rapids Kernels were winning ballgames with dramatic ninth-inning heroics at least once a week. From that perspective, Wednesday night's walk-off 3-2 victory over the Beloit Snappers, thanks to a Tyler Grimes game-winning RBI single, looked very familiar to Kernels fans.

But what many of the 1,952 fans that attended the game at Veterans Memorial Stadium might not have found so familiar was how the Kernels got into position to win that game.

A few short weeks ago, Tim Atherton was a reliable member of the Kernels relief pitching corps and Mason Melotakis took the mound every sixth game as one of the teams' top starting pitchers. However, in the topsy-turvy world of minor league baseball, where parent organizations carefully monitor how many innings young pitching arms accumulate during a season, roles can change quickly.

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Sulbaran joins Kernels pitching staff

Miguel Sulbaran is switching teams in the Midwest League and will join the Cedar Rapids Kernels, according to reports by FOX News and the Associated Press.

Sulbaran, 19, is a left-handed pitcher who has been a member of the Great Lakes Loons (a Los Angeles Dodgers affiliate) in the Midwest League this season. The Minnesota Twins acquired Sulbaran in a trade with the Dodgers and reportedly have assigned him to the Kernels.

Sulbaran, a native of Venezuela, went 6-4 with a 3.01 ERA in 23 appearances for the Loons with 16 starts. He has a low-90's fastball, curveball, slider and changeup.

The Twins sent catcher Drew Butera, who spent most of the season at Triple-A Rochester, to the Dodgers in late July for a player to be named later. On Tuesday, the Twins announced they had received Sulbaran to complete the trade.

Hurlbut promoted, Berrios put on DL

The Cedar Rapids Kernels lost two of their top pitchers Tuesday.

David Hurlbut, a left-handed relief pitcher, has been promoted to the Fort Myers Miracle in the Florida State League. Jose Berrios, a member of the starting rotation, has been placed on the 7-day disabled list with a right elbow contusion.

Hurlbut appeared in 24 games (three starts) for the Kernels with a 3-1 record, 2.54 ERA and six saves in eight chances. In 50 innings, he allowed 40 hits and 20 runs (14 earned) with eight walks and 46 strikeouts. He was selected by the Twins in the 28th round of the 2011 draft and spent last season at Beloit.

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