Long, Karcich are friends, teammates - again

CEDAR RAPIDS - When Matt Long is going bad, he doesn't have to phone home to California for fatherly advice on how to get his swing back. Same goes for Jon Karcich.

They can just consult each other.

The Cedar Rapids Kernels pair played three years of college baseball together at Santa Clara University. They were drafted last June by the Los Angeles Angels and have found themselves teammates again this season in pro ball.

The Kernels dropped a suspended game from Sunday last night, 6-4, but rebounded to post an 13-5 in the seven-inning scheduled game.

“Three years in college and against each other in high school, too,” said Karcich. “There's always that core group of guys that you become good friends with in and out of baseball. He's that guy I've known for the past six years. That helps. He knows how I play, knows my swing, stuff like that. It's good to go to him for advice. It's definitely good to have him here.”

The buddies have lockers close to each other in the Kernels clubhouse. They have separate housing families but still spend a lot of time off field together.

Karcich is a shortstop who came into last night hitting .230 in 41 games. An outfielder, Long was hitting .286 in 67 games.

“We really like it,” Long said. “We've played together now, this will be our fourth year. It's comfortable. We have tendencies. We can watch each other's swings and tell when we're going good or bad. We can tell mentally when either one of us is going good or bad. “And it helps, too, that we've been good friends going back to college, so we're not afraid to tell each other when we're doing something wrong.”

Karcich and Long played on separate Rookie-level clubs last season after signing with the Angels. But they're together this summer - again.

“We were talking about that the other day,” Long said. “What are the actual chances that we'd play on the same team in professional baseball?”

Mike Trout had four hits in the doubleheader, upping his season total against the T-Rats to a whopping 23 in 12 games. Casey Haerther had two hits and five RBIs.

The teams conclude their three-game series tonight at 6:35.