C.R. Kernels reliever C.K. Irby hopes lightning strikes again ... with his baseball career

CEDAR RAPIDS — He does not wear a glove with 'Wonderboy' inscripted. If C.K. Irby truly wanted to mimic the movie 'The Natural,' he'd get that phrase tattooed on himself somewhere.

The Cedar Rapids Kernels relief pitcher was not split in two by a lightning bolt, but he was hit by one. Camping in Ohio on the way back home to Alabama after a senior class trip to Niagara Falls and the Canadian border, Irby was in a tent playing cards with four others when a storm hit.

Let him tell the rest.

'All of a sudden, the biggest flash of lightning I've ever seen,' he said, after the Kernels were beaten by Clinton, 7-2, Sunday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium. 'A huge crack, and we all are feeling this huge tingling that hit us. We jump out of the tent and head to our car. We go back out to the tent and look, and there's this big hole in the top of it where it had burned through. I think, luckily, it had split around us.'

Everyone turned out to be just fine. Scared, but fine.

'I don't know if it was a direct hit, but I like to say it was,' Irby said, with a smile. 'We were all sitting on our sleeping bags. You could feel it straight up through your spine. It just tingled, felt like fingers were going up your back.'

And ever since, he's been throwing fastballs in the upper-90s. OK, that's not exactly true, but the right-hander does have a low-90s heater and what Manager Jake Mauer calls a 'wipeout slider.'

Irby has used those pitches to accumulate (or not accumulate) a 0.00 earned run average over 6 2/3 innings early in the Midwest League season. He came on to relieve starter Dereck Rodriguez in the seventh inning here, threw a wild pitch that scored a run but retired both batters he faced.

The 23-year-old was a 10th-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins in 2013 out of Samford University in Alabama, pitched for the Kernels some last season but got shipped back to Rookie ball to work on his control. He has just two walks so far this season.

'I feel a lot better about things,' he said. 'Been working a lot with (pitching coach) J.P. Martinez, worked with him throughout spring training. We've been working on a few things, and he has really helped my command. I'm more confident with my style of pitching. Just attack the zone is what I guess my M.O. is this year.'

Clinton (6-4) scored three runs in the seventh to break a 1-1 tie and split this four-game series. Rodriguez was the tough-luck loser.

The Kernels (7-4) managed only four hits, though one was from outfielder LaMonte Wade, who now has hit in all 11 games this season. He and infielder Luis Arraez have been stellar offensively the first week-plus, though Mauer wants others to start contributing.

'We didn't do much with the bats today,' he said. 'Some of these other guys have got to start picking it up. We can't just rely on two guys for 80 percent of the offense. One guy's hitting .400 (Wade), the other guy is hitting .346 (Arraez), then it's pee-yew after that. We've got to start making some adjustments here, shorten up and do some things to put the ball in play.'

The Kernels are going with a six-man starting rotation of Rodriguez, Cody Stashak, Sam Clay, Sam Gibbons, Andro Cutura and Randy LeBlanc. Stashak, who joined the team last week from extended spring training, is scheduled to start Monday night's game at Burlington.

That begins a seven-game commuter road trip to Burlington (three) and Clinton (four). After Monday night's 6:35 game, the Kernels return to Burlington for an 11:35 a.m. game Tuesday.

Clinton pitcher Patrick Peterson suffered a broken leg while covering home plate on a wild pitch in a game here Friday night. The reliever slipped on the plate, which fractured his fibula.

He was fitted for an aircast before being taken off the field. Obviously his season is done.

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