Kernels head out for pivotal 7-game road trip

CEDAR RAPIDS - There's not much hyperbole here. This road trip will probably make or break the Cedar Rapids Kernels.

“We just got talking about that,” Manager Brent Del Chiaro said, after his team's 3-2 loss to Quad Cities before 4,763 fans last night at Memorial Stadium. “I challenged them. If they can keep the same focus and intensity that we had in this series, I think we will have a successful road trip.”

The Kernels (49-61, 17-23 second half) lost three of four to the best team in the Midwest League, but they were tight games and there was zero evidence of anyone giving up or giving in. This club continues to fight despite a rough last two and a half months.

Cedar Rapids is four games behind Clinton for the second and final available playoff spot in the Western Division with 30 games remaining. That includes the next seven away from home: four at Peoria and three biggies at Clinton.

“I don't really want to sit here and say this is the road trip that is going to make or break us,” Del Chiaro said. But it's a situation where ... we kind of control our own destiny here.”

“Peoria's kind of down right now, from what I've heard, so we've just got to go in there and do what we do,” said Kernels third baseman Jeremy Cruz. “If we play the way we played against Quad Cities, we'll be fine.”

Cruz was a home run shy of the cycle last night, striking out in the eighth inning in his only attempt to complete it. The Kernels fell behind, 3-0, after six, rallying for a pair of runs in the seventh to make it anyone's game.

Ricky Alvarez led off the bottom of the ninth with a double. Cedar Rapids had runners on the corners with two outs, but QC relief pitcher Angel DeJesus got Francis Larson to bounce into a fielder's choice to shortstop to end it.

“It's a loss, but we battled,” Del Chiaro said. “For me, personally, those are the best arms in the league over there. One through five, you're in a dogfight. We battled them ... These guys are understanding that ‘OK, this is what it takes.'”