Golden Sombrero for Travis Blankenhorn, but also a game-winning hit for Kernels

CEDAR RAPIDS — Give him that Golden Sombrero.

'I'm wearing it,' Travis Blankenhorn said.

It became a lot easier for the Cedar Rapids Kernels infielder to do so after he got the game-winning walk-off hit Saturday night. His line-drive single over the right fielder's head with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning scored Joe Cronin from second base for a 6-5 win over Peoria before 4,372 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

This was the perfect example of why it takes a short memory and mental strength to be a baseball player. Blankenhorn struck out swinging in his first four at-bats.

It's called a hat trick when you whiff three times in a game, a Golden Sombrero when you do it four times.

'Obviously, if anyone watched the game, I wasn't having good at-bats early,' Blankenhorn said. 'I've felt good all week, but today was just one of those days where I wasn't seeing it well. I was swinging at balls, swinging at lefty curveballs. That last at-bat, I just tried to get the (bat) head out, get a good pitch. He left a slider in the zone, and I was able to hit it.'

The lefty swinging Blankenhorn looked futile in strikeouts against left-handed Peoria starter Evan Kruczynski in the first, second and fifth innings. Kruczynski kept throwing him breaking balls off the plate away, and Blankenhorn kept chasing them.

He struck out against righty Eric Carter in the seventh. Back against a lefty — a sidearmer in Dewin Perez, no less — Blankenhorn got behind in the count 1-2 but barreled up the next pitch.

Cronin singled sharply up the middle with two outs in the ninth and stole second base, causing Peoria right fielder Dylan Carlson to come in a step or two, in order to have a play at the plate on a single in front of him. That may have helped Blankenhorn's ball clear his reach, though it was well, well struck.

'Four strikeouts, then come through against a tough lefty,' said Kernels Manager Tommy Watkins. 'You hit it right on the head talking about having to have a short memory. We preach that all the time. Don't let one at-bat carry over to the next, the next and the next. It's one at-bat, it's over. Don't think about it, learn from it and move on.'

Danny Hudzina's no-doubter home run over the porch in left tied the game for Peoria at 5-5 with one out in the top of the ninth inning. It came against reliever Hector Lujan of Cedar Rapids, who had been virtually automatic in closing situations.

That was Lujan's first blown save in nine opportunities and broke a scoreless string of nine appearances. The Kernels (48-39, 9-8) scored four times in the second — on a two-run Andre Jernigan double and two-run Gorge Munoz single — and went ahead in the seventh on back-to-back triples by Munoz and Aaron Whitefield.

The teams play again Sunday afternoon at 2:05. The Kernels lost a bullpen arm prior to Saturday's game, when left-hander Alex Robinson was promoted to high-Class A Fort Myers. The hard-throwing left-hander was 2-5 with two saves in a team-leading 28 appearances, striking out 51 in 38 innings.

No replacement for him on the active roster was immediately announced.

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