Pitcher Westphal takes road less traveled to affiliated pro baseball

CEDAR RAPIDS - Luke Westphal admits that had he not gotten this wonderful opportunity from the Minnesota Twins, he might not be playing baseball at all right now.

'I don't know if I would have gone back to the independent leagues or not,” the Cedar Rapids Kernels pitcher said, after his team's 4-3, 10-inning loss to Quad Cities at Veterans Memorial Stadium. 'Maybe I would have played this summer, just to see if I'd get picked up. But that would have been the end of it, probably.”

It's not the end of it for the 26-year-old left-hander, who threw his first inning here since dropping from advanced-Class A Fort Myers for the second half of the season. He was a reliever for the Miracle but will be a starter for the Kernels.

Westphal comes from a small town in Wisconsin (Clintonville), a small college program (NCAA Division III Wisconsin-Oshkosh), as well as the independent Frontier League (the Gateway Grizzlies) and Australia. It wasn't even that country's best league the Twins signed him out of in January.

This was the Victorian Summer Baseball League, not the well-known Australian Baseball League. Twins scout Howie Norsetter saw him and liked him enough to offer him a contract and the dream of a lifetime.

'I was playing indy ball, hoping for the opportunity to play affiliated baseball,” he said. 'I had a chance to go over and play in Australia and felt like it would be another great opportunity for the winter and stuff. I was fortunate enough over there to throw well. Luckily there was a Twins scout who saw me … He just said the Twins would like to sign me, and I said absolutely. That was the end of it.

'I signed and got a flight home about three weeks later. I had three weeks of spring training and got right back into it. It was a pretty unreal scenario.”

Westphal's younger brother, Ross, is an offensive lineman for the Upper Iowa University football team, so he knows this area pretty well. He was eating a nice pasta meal postgame Friday night, which you usually don't get in the independent leagues.

'It's obvious he loves playing the game,” said Kernels Manager Jake Mauer.

Mauer didn't love the way this game played out. Cedar Rapids (42-30, 1-1 second half) took a 3-1 lead into the eighth inning, but usually impervious all-star reliever Trevor Hildenberger gave up two runs to tie it.

Hildenberger came in allowing two earned runs all season in 35.1 innings. He had given up just 15 hits, only to have Quad Cities (46-24, 1-1) touch him for six in two innings.

'First (bad) one he's had all year,” Mauer said. 'A two-run lead in the eighth inning with Hildenberger going out there, you're feeling pretty good. The command of his pitches wasn't very good. He couldn't put anybody away with two strikes.”

QC won it in the 10th when Ramon Laureano tripled with one out and scored on a Kristian Trompiz sacrifice fly. Laureano hit a sinking liner that Kernels right fielder Max Murphy came in for initially, then tried to stop to field it on the bounce, only to slip and have it go over his head.

Mauer said all-star infielder Trev Vavra is going to head to the Twins training complex in Fort Myers, Fla., to see if Twins medical staff there can expedite healing on his injured ankle. Vavra, who was hitting .346, hasn't played since May 26, hurting himself while slipping into the tarp tube down the left-field line while chasing a fly ball.

The teams play again Saturday night at 6:35.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com