Rubel Bringing ‘em In

CEDAR RAPIDS - The term RBI stands for “Rubel Batting ‘em In.“

A little cheesy there, but it’s been true the first week of the Midwest League baseball season.

Rubel Cespedes of the Cedar Rapids Kernels has been just a wee bit productive offensively in his team’s first seven games. He went 3-for-5 with a home run Saturday as the Kernels beat Dayton, 8-5, on a beautiful spring afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

It was the fourth multi-hit game in the last five days for the kid. He has 12 RBIs in that span, including driving in a career-high seven Wednesday.

“I’m trying to make contact, put the ball in play. Just trying to make hard contact,” Cespedes said, through Kernels hitting and development coach Jairo Rodriguez. “I want to lessen the strikeouts especially this year. I feel better, have more experience. I’m just playing better right now.”

Cespedes ought to take a photo of his current stats because they aren’t likely to get better. How can they?

He leads the MWL in batting average (.545/12-for-21) and homers (three). He has reached base in 16 of his 26 plate appearances.

And of course his RBI total is tops. Cespedes led the Florida State League with 74 of them last season with low-Class A Fort Myers.

Rubel’s batting ‘em in. The 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic was signed by the Minnesota Twins as an international free agent in 2019 and is expected to play the corner infield this season for the Kernels (3-4).

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The lefty swinger had a run-scoring single up the middle in the third inning here, a run-scoring single to center in the fifth and a solo homer to right in the seventh.

“I just want to get better every year,” he said, through Rodriguez. “I try to compete every day. I want to be a champion this year, too.”

Cespedes also has four walks to four strikeouts, which is another encouraging sign considering he whiffed over 100 times last season.

“The ball comes off the bat hard,” said Kernels Manager Brian Dinkelman. “When he gets a hold of it, it comes off pretty good. He’s off to a nice start, has swung the bat well. Hopefully he’ll build off what he did last season and be right in the middle of our lineup this year.”

Keoni Cavaco also homered Saturday for Cedar Rapids. Misael Urbina, Gabriel Gonzalez and Jay Harry had two hits apiece.

The teams conclude their six-game series Sunday afternoon at 1:05. The Kernels have won three of the the first five.

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