Amarista quietly effective for Kernels

Alexi Amarista is the consummate house guest.

That's what Jimmy Curran says. The longtime Cedar Rapids Kernels board of directors member has opened his home on the southwest side of Cedar Rapids to the dynamic little second baseman from Venezuela this baseball season.

There have been no troubles with this living arrangement, other than Amarista's limited English skills.

“Never hear a peep out of Lexi,” Curran said. “He comes home after every game, heads straight to his room and gets on his computer.”

“Facebook,” Amarista said in English before last night's 8-1 Kernels win over Clinton at Memorial Stadium.

No nightly shenanigans for this kid. He loves baseball and is highly focused on his professional career.

It's a career that has taken a significant upward turn this summer. Amarista was named Tuesday to the Midwest League's postseason all-star team, a just reward for a season in which the 19-year-old is among the league leaders in batting average (. 313), hits (141), doubles (35) and triples (10).

“He just goes up there and has quality at-bats,” said Kernels hitting coach Brent Del Chiaro.

Del Chiaro said the parent Angels have a system that rates at-bats for players, with 49 percent of Amarista's considered “quality” under the scoring system.

“For a young kid to have virtually half of his at-bats be quality at-bats is spectacular, especially considering it's his first full season,” Del Chiaro said.

Kernel Andrew Taylor was named a postseason MWL all-star as a left-handed reliever. He has a 3-0 record, seven saves and 0.94 earned run average in 36 appearances.

“It's a big accomplishment,” said Taylor, when informed of the news Tuesday. “It's an honor.”

The Kernels had 12 hits and got six strong innings from starter Will Smith (9-4) in an 8-1 defeat of Clinton Tuesday night to improve to 72-56. Smith gave up just four hits and struck out six.