Home cooking suiting C.R.’s Christensen just fine

CEDAR RAPIDS – He got the Tom Kelly seal of approval this spring. Anyone familiar with the Minnesota Twins and their former hard-to-please longtime manager knows the significance of that.

Kelly is old school. You work hard, respect the game and do things the right way.

Chad Christensen's performance in spring training met that criteria.

'Chad opened some guys' eyes down there in Florida this spring,” Cedar Rapids Kernels Manager Jake Mauer said before a 1-0 rain-shortened win over Kane County at Veterans Memorial Stadium. 'Tom Kelly liked him, liked watching him hit. I think the two times TK saw him, he hurt two different umpires with line drives. He hits the ball hard.”

Yeah, especially lately. A hit by pitch in the fifth inning extended the Cedar Rapids Washington grad's streak of reaching base via hit, hit batsmen or walk to 15 consecutive games.

The outfielder, third baseman, first baseman has raised his batting average well into the .300s and also leads the club in stolen bases with six. This has been a great homecoming so far for a guy who is afforded the luxury of living at home this summer with his mom and younger brother.

'I'm just trying to get rest and stay healthy,” Christensen said. 'You know, we're just getting started, we're only 22 games into this. There's a lot more to go, but it's been a good time so far.”

Christensen sat out four games two weeks ago with a right elbow injury and had a large wrap on it before last night's game. Call it preventive maintenance.

The elbow doesn't seem to be affecting his performance, that's for certain. He has even moved up to the middle of the batting order, third against Kane County.

'He's just getting consistent at-bats. I think that's the big thing,” Mauer said. 'He's an older guy who has experience playing big-time college baseball. He brings things to our team – leadership, professionalism, things that are important for our guys to see. He's a guy who's middle of our lineup now, playing a lot of first base, playing a lot of left field. He's a versatile guy, which is important.”

Christensen, 23, played four years at Nebraska before turning pro. The Florida Marlins took him in the 35th round of the 2012 draft, but he didn't sign and ended up getting his degree in finance.

The Twins took him in the 25th round of last June's draft and played in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League.

'The GCL was good because we got to play in all the major league spring training places. That was neat,” Christensen said. 'But it was noon games every day, you don't get much of a crowd or anything like that. We talked about this the other day with the coaches, but this is more about winning, starting to play the game the right way.”

The Kernels (13-10) won for the fourth consecutive time, thanks to the starting pitching of Ryan Eades (2-3). He ignored the elements, providing six stellar, three-hit innings.

The right-hander struck out six, including five of the last six guys he faced. Cedar Rapids scored its run in the second, when Mitch Garver doubled the other way down the right-field line leading off, went to third on a groundout and scored on Bryan Haar's sacrifice fly to center.

The teams play again tonight at 6:35

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