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* Contact Metro Sports Report * Jim Ecker, President & Editor jim.ecker@metrosportsreport.com 319-390-4236 |
BURLINGTON - It's hard to win a ballgame when you strike out 16 times against a team that has the second-worst record in the entire Midwest League.
The Cedar Rapids Kernels proved that Tuesday night on a soggy, foggy night in Burlington.
The Kernels whiffed 16 times and lost to the struggling Bees, 4-1, before a paid crowd of 511 at Community Field.
The Cedar Rapids Kernels and Minnesota Twins announced Tuesday that left-handed pitcher Brett Lee has been placed on the 7-day disabled list with a left flexor mass strain, retroactive to July 27. Also, catcher Jairo Rodriguez has been assigned to the Kernels from Rochester of the International League, and left-handed pitcher Brandon Bixler has been assigned to the Kernels from Elizabethton of the Appalachian League. Brad Steil, Director of Minor League Operations for the Twins, announced the moves.
Lee has appeared in 18 games (16 starts) for the Kernels this season, posting a 7-4 record and 3.23 ERA. In 100.1 IP, he allowed 106 hits and 47 runs (36 earned) with 23 walks and 78 strikeouts. He was selected by the Twins in the 10th round of the 2011 First Year Player Draft out of St. Petersburg (Fla.) College.
The Twins selected Bixler in the 16th round of the 2013 First Year Player Draft out of Florida Gulf Coast and he has appeared in six games at Elizabethton with a 1-1 record and 0.73 ERA. In 12.1 IP, he allowed six hits and two runs (one earned) with four walks and 18 strikeouts.
Players come, players go and the Cedar Rapids Kernels keep winning.
The Kernels scored two unearned runs in the bottom of the eighth inning Monday night and trimmed the Clinton Lumber Kings, 4-3, before 2,026 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Cedar Rapids has the best record in the Midwest League at 65-39, despite having 44 different players in uniform this season (45 if you count Minnesota Twins pitcher Mike Pelfrey, who appeared here on a rehab assignment).
Mason Melotakis was in command from start to nearly finish and the Cedar Rapids Kernels continued their home-field hex over the Clinton LumberKings.
Melotakis scattered five hits over eight innings to notch his ninth win and the Kernels beat Clinton, 3-1, in a Midwest League baseball game played before a crowd of 2,676 at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
The Kernels (24-11) ran their record at Perfect Game Field to 5-0 against the LumberKings (16-19). The Kernels play Clinton for the final time on home sod Monday night at 6:35.
Jeremias Pineda's two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the sixth inning broke a 1-1 tie and lifted the Kernels to the win.
Max Kepler spends most of his time patrolling the outfield for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, but Saturday night he took a turn at first base.
Regardless of the position, Kepler brought his “A” game and led the Kernels to a come-from-behind 5-2 win over the Clinton LumberKings in front of a packed house of 5,161 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Kepler made a diving stop in each of the first two innings to preserve a scoreless game and hit a solo home run to move the Kernels to within a 2-1 score in the fifth inning. He added another run-saving, diving snag in the seventh frame and topped off his night with an RBI single in the Kernels’ eighth.
Tony Oliva played Major League baseball for the Minnesota Twins for part of 15 seasons during the 1960s and 1970s and has become an icon of the Twins organization. He is one of seven Twins to have been honored by having his number (6) retired by the franchise.
And thanks to the Cedar Rapids Kernels' new affiliation with the Twins this season, Oliva is in Cedar Rapids this weekend as part of the “Twins Weekend” celebration put on by the Kernels. Oliva is the featured guest speaker at the Twins Breakfast Saturday morning at the Clarion Hotel & Convention Center. The breakfast is from 8-10 a.m. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for children 12-under.
While the Kernels were in the process of defeating Peoria Friday night, Oliva met with the media. He spoke on several topics, but started by expressing how impressed he was with the Kernels' facilities.
“Beautiful,” is how Oliva described Veterans Memorial Stadium. “This ballpark is like a big league ballpark. It’s better than a lot of the big league ballparks I played in in the ‘60s.”
Individual game tickets for the Cedar Rapids Kernels first round playoff game on Thursday, Sept. 5 go on sale to the general pubic at 10 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 12.
The Kernels qualified for the Midwest League Playoffs as the first half wild card team and will host games two and three (if necessary) in the first round against a yet to be determined opponent.
For six innings Friday night, it looked like the Peoria Chiefs simply had the Kernels number this series. The Chiefs scored single runs in the third and fifth innings and held a 2-0 lead when the 3,746 fans attending the game at Veterans Memorial Stadium stood for the seventh-inning stretch.
By the time the Kernels finished their half of the seventh, however, they held a 6-2 lead over the visiting Chiefs that would also stand as the final score.
Niko Goodrum, Jorge Polanco and Joel Licon all doubled during the stanza, while Mike Gonzales, Travis Harrison and Jonathan Murphy all added singles. It was the kind of timely hitting that the Kernels have been missing this series, as all but one of the six runs the Kernels scored in the inning were plated with two outs.
Kernels starting pitcher Josue Montanez had been struggling lately, failing to survive five innings in two of his past three starts.
But Thursday night, the lefthander from Puerto Rico appeared to find his rhythm early, throwing seven innings for the first time this season.
Unfortunately, the Kernels wasted Montanez’s effort, falling to the Peoria Chiefs 8-3 before a crowd of 3,085 at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
The Cedar Rapids Kernels lost a baseball game Wednesday night at Veterans Memorial Stadium, but they can’t say they didn’t have opportunities to do otherwise.
The Peoria Chiefs never trailed to the Kernels in the game, but needed 10 innings to top the Kernels 8-7, in front of a crowd of 1,945. However, the Kernels saw two bases-loaded opportunities erased by inning-ending double plays long before the game ever got to extra frames.
Kernels starting pitcher Christian Powell struggled early, giving up three runs to the Chiefs in the first inning and another run in the second stanza.
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