A highly encouraging pitching performance for Ty Langenberg of Cedar Rapids Kernels

CEDAR RAPIDS - That was one gigantic sigh of relief you felt from him. The word didn’t come out of his mouth, but surely it was there perched in the back of his mind.

Phew.

“I really needed that,” Ty Langenberg said.

Absolutely he did. To say this Midwest League season has been challenging for the Cedar Rapids Kernels pitcher and former Iowa Hawkeye isn’t really even scratching the proverbial surface.

The right-hander from Urbandale hasn’t had much success, hasn’t gotten enough guys out, hasn’t had much good happen. Until Wednesday.

Langenberg threw six shutout innings and got his first victory of the season as the Kernels blanked Peoria, 6-0. He very much needed a pick-me-up start and got one.

“It has been tough,” Langenberg said. “Obviously it has been a lot of ups and downs, doing my best to be in the zone at all times, but at the same time trying to figure out mechanically progressing and trying to add some more velocity in there. That’s going to take some time to get used to. Some days it’ll click like today, and other days, it’ll just kind of be all out of whack.”

Langenberg went into Wednesday with an 0-3 record and 7.79 earned run average in nine starts this season. His opposing batting average was .326 and his walk rate was too high (19 in 32 1/3 innings).

Simply not good enough. Until Wednesday.

He wasn’t completely clean, as his only up-and-down inning was his last one, but he skirted around potential trouble. His pickoff in the third helped him get out of a runners-at-the-corners, one-out situation.

Langenberg gave up just two hits, both singles, walked four and struck out three. His previous longest outing this season was 4 2/3 innings last month against Fort Wayne, and he gave up six runs.

“I’d say the intensity,” said Kernels co-pitching coach Hunter Townsend, when asked the difference this time around. “He was more intense, he was more diligent this week, he worked harder this week than he has. And I think that helped him out a lot.”

Langenberg, 23, was an 11th-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins in 2023 and spent a bit more than half of last season with the Kernels, pitching to a 5-2 record and 3.90 ERA. The Twins have tried to bump his fastball velocity a tad, and he consistently was at 93 miles per hour Wednesday.

They’ve also been working on a new curveball grip with him and added a changeup in the past couple of weeks. It has been an adjustment.

“(It’s) helping him (gain) a renewed confidence,” said Kernels co-pitching coach A.J. Angulo. “A big part of that is the mental side of the game, just deciding to go after people. I think he’s tired of the numbers that he has and instead wants to put up numbers that he knows he can.”

“It’s going to take time,” Langenberg said. “But at the end of the day, I’m going to have to go out there and trust it. Continue to compete and eventually things will go my way. I think today was a testament to that. Just go out there every day and compete.”

The Kernels (34-24) moved to a game up on Quad Cities for first place in the Midwest League’s Western Division, with QC playing a Wednesday night home game against Beloit. Cedar Rapids has eight games remaining in the first half, including a double-header against Peoria that begins at noon Thursday.

Offensively, the Kernels got a little something from everyone Wednesday, including triples from Danny DeAndrade, Jaime Ferrer and Justin Connell, all of whom ended up scoring.

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