Kernels' pitching struggles again in loss

CEDAR RAPIDS - No need to come to any conclusions on anyone or anything, yet. It's just six ballgames into the Midwest League season.

But the Cedar Rapids Kernels have got to pitch better. That's not being presumptuous.

Wisconsin toppled them last night, 8-5, before 962 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium, marking the fourth time already the Kernels have given up eight runs or more. Not good.

“Not at all,” said Kernels Manager Brent Del Chiaro, when asked how concerned he is with his pitching. “If you really look at it, it's a few pitches here and there that have led to bigger innings. Once we as a pitching staff get into our head that ‘OK, we're ahead in the count, we need to put guys away,' then we'll be fine.”

The toughest part of this deal was that Cedar Rapids (2-4) took a lead into the eighth inning. Starter Max Russell was in line for the victory when Wes Hatton's RBI fielder's choice grounder put the Kernels up in the bottom of the seventh, 5-4.

But Mike Walker took reliever A.J. Schugel opposite field for a three-run home run to left-center in the eighth, and the T-Rats (4-2) added an insurance run off him in the ninth. Del Chiaro pointed to Walker's at-bat as a perfect representation of what he's talking about when it comes to his pitchers' inability to put hitters away.

Schugel got ahead in the count 0-2.

“We have the guy right where we want him,” Del Chiaro said. “It was just a mistake. We tried to go back inside on him, and just left it out over the plate. The guy made him pay for it.”

Russell is the only Kernels starter to get past the fifth inning thus far, pitching six innings in the season opener at Peoria last week and seven last night.

“It's a learning process with these guys,” Del Chiaro said. “They're going to find that from Rookie ball to here, guys are better hitters. We've just got to heighten our awareness of when we're ahead in the count, you've really got to put them away.”

The teams play again tonight at 6:35.