Kernels see win streak halted at 8

CEDAR RAPIDS - If you're going to have a long winning streak go kaput, it might as well be like this.

The Cedar Rapids Kernels didn't get blown out or anything Wednesday night, losing to Quad Cities, 5-2, before 1,673 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium. But it was the way they played this laborious, no-flow, three-hour game that made you shrug your shoulders and say ‘Ah, it happens. We'll get ‘em tomorrow.'

'Very flat,” Manager Jake Mauer said. 'Nothing was very crisp or very sharp.”

Count the ways in which it wasn't very crisp or sharp.

Starting pitcher Stephen Gonsalves matriculated through five innings, giving up just a pair of runs, but was in constant trouble. Losing reliever Hudson Boyd (4-3) gave up three runs in the sixth inning that turned out to be the difference.

A flyball that left fielder J.D. Williams overran and let drop behind him was big in that River Bandits rally. It was one of three errors in the game for Cedar Rapids (67-61, 36-22), which had won eight straight.

Kernels hitters were to blame as well, with all kinds of guys stranded in scoring position early.

'Both sides of the ball we just weren't very good,” Mauer said.

One play was a perfect representation of the night. With runners on second and third and none out in the second, Williams hit a ball to fairly deep right field that was caught in the gap.

Alex Swim, the guy at third, tagged up, felt he had left the bag too early, so went back, retagged and was thrown out at the plate by a hefty margin. Mauer just stood in the third-base coaches box with hands on hips, looking to the sky in exasperation.

'The oddest thing I've ever seen,” he said. 'In that situation, you've got to understand you've got to run that through, even if you thougtyou left early. Force (the umpires) to make a call.”

So the Kernels' magic number for clinching a Midwest League playoff spot remains five, with six commuter road trip games on the horizon at Burlington and Quad Cities. They've gone 30-10 in their last 40 games, so the hope is this was just a hiccup.

Even during this stretch of victories, Cedar Rapids has been unable to overtake first-place Kane County in the Western Division. The Cougars won their 10th in a row Thursday afternoon and lead the Kernels by a pair of games.

Kane County qualified for the postseason by winning the division's first half, so the Kernels aren't concerned with that.

'We'll see how tomorrow goes,” Mauer said. 'That always interests you how the makeup of your team is when you don't play very good. You want to see how you respond.”

Mauer said starting pitcher Kohl Stewart, who left Tuesday night in the second inning with a recurrence of a tight and sore shoulder will be evaluated Thursday by a local physician. Stewart was placed on the disabled list three weeks ago and reactivated last week.

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