Ballpark power outage doesn’t faze Cedar Rapids Kernels in Game 3 win of Midwest League Western Division title series

CEDAR RAPIDS - The lights got turned out Friday night on the Cedar Rapids Kernels.

We’re not talking about their 2025 season. That continues to roll along, to the Midwest League Championship Series for the second time in three years.

A 7-1 win over Beloit at Veterans Memorial Stadium secured C.R.’s spot in the best-of-3 finals opposite the West Michigan Whitecaps. Yeah, those Whitecaps.

West Michigan has a 94-39 overall record, including the two wins it got to sweep Lake County in the Eastern Division finals. The winning percentage of .707 is one of the best in the entire minor leagues in the last three decades.

But all the Kernels have got to do is play two great baseball games. Game 1 is Sunday afternoon at West Michigan, with the series shifting to Cedar Rapids for Game 2 on Tuesday night and an if-needed Game 3 the following night.

“We know what we’re going up against, everyone knows what we’re going up against,” said Kernels relief pitcher Matt Gabbert. “But we’re prepared, we’re ready, we know how good of a team we are, know how good of a team they are. It’s going to be a dogfight, and we’re excited.”

“Everybody is 0-0,” said Kernels Manager Brian Meyer in a chaotic (in a celebratory way) home clubhouse. “We went up the second week of August and got swept. At that point, we had a new team, a lot of transactions: trade-deadline additions, releases, promotions. We played decently well up there. A couple of games got out of hand, but we played decently well. But this group has come together over the last month and have a common mission. Keep playing together, keep growing, keep developing as players and as people. We’re going to have our hands full. They’re good. But this is a good group that we have.”

Now back to the lights going out. Beloit loaded the bases with two outs against Kernels starting pitcher Adrian Bohorquez in the top of the first when there was a loud pop and everything went dark.

The stadium lights went out, the giant scoreboard/video board in right-center field went dark, everything. A transformer blew, which caused the power outage.

It’d be a half-hour before it could be fixed.

“Just when you think you’ve seen everything,” Meyer said. “You coach in the Florida State League for four years, and you get rain when there’s no rain on the radar the first inning. We had the lights go out one night during a game because ants ate through a bunch of wires ...

“That’s like tonight. Light goes out in the first inning. That’s when you’ve seen it all. Bases loaded, first inning, two outs. You can’t make that stuff up. You just can’t make it up. Kudos to our guys for just sticking with it.”

The delay was too long for Bohorquez to keep throwing, so the Kernels had to unexpectedly try to piece together its pitching for the remainder of the game. Matt Gabbert gave up a RBI single to the first batter he faced after game resumption but that was it.

He’d end up throwing three more shutout innings.

“I mean, kind of just getting thrown into the fire, right?” Gabbert said. “Thinking back about ”Have I been here before, been in this situation?’ Just going back to trusting (my stuff), and then knowing I’ve got a great defense behind me. Just go in there and trust the guys. Just have fun doing what we normally do.”

The Kernels then scored five runs in the bottom of the first against Beloit starting pitcher Luke Lashutka on RBI hits from Billy Amick and Danny DeAndrade, a two-run double by Misael Urbina and an error.

“Set the tone for the game,” said Marek Houston, the parent Minnesota Twins’ first-round draft pick in July. “Put up five right away, and we kind of closed it out right there, you know? That’s kind of how we thought. I mean, it wasn’t over, but we went out there and played hard all night.”

Houston went 3-for-4 Friday. Urbina, who also has a Midwest League championship ring as a member of the 2023 Kernels, went 2-for-4 with three RBIs.

Gabbert threw 3 1/3 shutout innings, then tagged in Chase Chaney, who added three and was credited with the victory. Brennen Oxford and Paulshawn Pasqualotto added one shutout inning each, and that was that.

The Kernels won the 2023 Midwest League championship over Great Lakes, two games to one. They lost the 2021 championship series to Quad Cities, three games to two.

Cedar Rapids dropped the 2015 MWL finals to West Michigan, three games to two. This is the 11th time in 12 seasons as a Twins affiliate that the Kernels have been a playoff qualifier.

“This is what we’re working for all year,” Gabbert said. “This is what we’re here to do. Getting the opportunity is what we want. We’re going to make the most of it.”

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