Kernels slide continues with loss to Wisconsin

At one point in the middle of this debacle, a fed-up fan screamed “Wake up, Kernels.”

Or just reappear. The Cedar Rapids Kernels you've seen four of the last five games haven't been the Kernels you've seen most of this Midwest League season.

The pitching continues to struggle. Uncharacteristically, the defense did, too, last night, committing three errors in a 10-5 loss to Wisconsin at Memorial Stadium.

“Just ugly baseball,” said Kernels Manager Bill Mosiello. “We haven't pitched for a while. It's a shame because Manny (pitching coach Brandon Emanuel) has done such a great job. We were second in the league at one point in pitching, and now we're fifth.”

It's actually sixth after last night. And it's four losses in five games for Cedar Rapids (65-51, 25-21), with the opponent scoring 36 times in those games.

We're officially in the dog days of the season, and the Kernels played for the 18th straight day last night. That would make anyone tired.

“It's getting toward that part of the season where you can call it a grind, I guess,” said Kernels catcher Beau Brooks. “Yeah, I do think people are getting tired. But we've had meetings about it. This separates the men from the boys. You've just got to suck it up and power through it.”

Manuarys Correa (6-8) leads the Midwest League in innings pitched, and it's looking like it. A heavy workload would explain why he has struggled getting outs lately.

Wisconsin (50-65, 16-29) is the worst hitting team in the MWL but torched Correa for 10 hits and seven runs (five earned) in four innings. Over his last four starts, the right-hander has given up 23 runs in 19 1/3 innings.

“He was leaving the ball up, and that's just another example of being tired,” Brooks said. “Like I keep saying, we've just got to suck it up and power through this.”

On the positive side, Will Smith (8-3) is expected to activated from the disabled list and piggyback with Ryan Chaffee in Friday's game against Wisconsin. He's been one of the Kernels' best starters this season.

Offensively, the Kernels have been all right lately, too. They fought back within 8-4 with a four-run sixth inning that included a two-run single by Darwin Perez, who is hitting .324 in August.

Now it's time to work on that August earned run average, which is 6.69.

“It's interesting to look at our losses the last 12 games or so,” Mosiello said. “They're all with us giving up six, seven runs or more.”