Daniels pitches Kennedy to Metro Tourney finals

CEDAR RAPIDS – By the time Cedar Rapids Kennedy's Zach Daniels went out for the seventh inning to try and finish off a no-hitter Monday night, the cadre of professional baseball scouts already had packed up their radar guns and exited the premises.

Where was the love, man?

A group that included former Chicago Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry, now a special assistant to the GM for the New York Yankees, was there to watch Cedar Rapids Xavier pitcher Mitch Keller make his season debut. He's a possible high pick in the upcoming MLB draft.

Yet it was Daniels, a soft-tossing sort who honestly has no shot at playing in the big leagues, was the star of his team's 5-0 Metro Baseball Tournament semifinal win. A somewhat disputed one-out infield hit forced him to 'settle” for a measly one-hit shutout that moves Kennedy to Tuesday night's 7 p.m. title game at Veterans Memorial Stadium against either Linn-Mar or Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

They play a preceding semifinal at 5.

'I wasn't worried about (Keller),” Daniels said. 'I was just trying to get our team to the championship.”

Which he did with his arm and wheels. Daniels beat out a routine grounder to shortstop to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning, went to second on a groundout, stole third and scurried home on another groundout.

That was the only run against Keller, the University of North Carolina commit. Kennedy scored four insurance runs against a pair of relievers in the seventh.

'Zach Daniels threw a great game,” said Keller, whose fastball was clocked as high as 93 miles per hour. 'He was keeping the ball down, and we couldn't touch him.”

Daniels struck out just four, but Xavier hit very few balls hard against his slow, slower, slowest mix. He pounded the zone, throwing 18 first-pitch strikes and finishing with just 73 pitches.

Logan Clarahan hit a slow chopper to short with one out in the seventh that a charging Derek Jacobus of Kennedy couldn't field on the short hop. Jacobus protested and wanted to wear the error, but ‘hit' was probably the correct call.

'That's an error, easily,” Jacobus said.

'If I'm the hitter, I'm thinking that's a hit,” said a diplomatic Kennedy Coach Bret Hoyer. 'Because you have one chance to get that out, and that's to get that in-between hop. With a high hop like that, that's your only chance. If you sit back and field that clean, you're never going to get him out. So you have one chance, do or die, and he just didn't come up with it.”

Daniels seemed OK with the call.

'I mean, Jacobus, he's gotta come up with that ball,” he said completely and utterly tongue in cheek.

Keller, meanwhile, said he was fairly pleased with his 94-pitch outing. He gave up four hits, including three in the third inning when Daniels was thrown out at the plate trying to score on a two-out single, walked two and struck out six.

The MLB Draft is June 5-7, and Keller said if he goes in the first three rounds, it's likely he'll turn pro. If not, he'll head to Carolina.

He said he has tentative plans to travel to Kansas City and Milwaukee in the next week or so to meet with the front offices of the Royals and Brewers, respectively.

'I've been talking to teams, and they've kind of been asking ‘Will you sign here, there?'” he said. 'So come draft day, once I hear my name, I'll pretty much already know (what's going to happen). We'll pretty much have a deal done right when they call my name.”

In Monday's other games at Xavier, Kennedy knocked off Mount Vernon, 6-1, Xavier blasted Cedar Rapids Prairie in five innings, 13-2, and Mount Vernon beat Prairie, 11-6

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