Starting pitcher Jose Olivares through a season-high five innings Wednesday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium as the Cedar Rapids Kernels beat Lake County, 1-0. The 22-year-old from Venezuela has the makings of a future major leaguer.
Outfielder Gabriel Gonzalez has always been known as a good hitter. A back issue last season with the Cedar Rapids Kernels prevented him from showing that. But he’s healthy this season and hitting a ton the first month and a half of the Midwest League season.
Shortstop Kaelen Culpepper was the first-round pick (21st overall) of the Minnesota Twins last summer out of Kansas State. He has flashed his skills in the early going for the Cedar Rapids Kernels in between injuries, including one Wednesday in a 7-6, 11-inning loss to Peoria.
Iowa Heartlanders head coach and general manager Derek Damon will leave the ECHL hockey club to take over as head coach and president of hockey operations of the Des Moines Buccaneers of the junior United States Hockey League. Damon was an assistant coach for Iowa in its inaugural season of 2021-22, taking over at head coach/GM in the summer of 2022. The Heartlanders and Bucs both are owned by New York businessman Michael Devlin
Pitcher Alejandro Hidalgo of the Cedar Rapids Kernels was part of a trade that sent him from the Los Angeles Angels to the Minnesota Twins organization in 2022. He missed all of last season with a shoulder injury but has returned and shown big league stuff.
The United States Hockey League has concluded the two phases of its 2025 draft. In Tuesday’s Phase II, the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders selected winger Cade Sherman of Rosemount High School in Minnesota. He’s the son of Matt Sherman, who started three years as the University of Iowa football team in the 1990s.
Cedar Rapids Kernels catcher-first baseman-designated hitter Nate Baez didn’t get a whole lot of playing time in the first week or two of the Midwest League season. But he got four hits in a game he did play in, he continued to follow up that performance with more good performances and now he finds himself with a .353 batting average and more walks than strikeouts while playing most days.
Here is your second look at how Eastern Iowans and former University of Iowa baseball players are doing in the early going of the 2025 Major League Baseball and minor league seasons.
Cedar Rapids Kernels catcher-outfielder Khadim Diaw has gotten off to a good start to the 2025 Midwest League season. A third-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins last summer from Loyola Marymount University, his mother played softball at Yale. His father is from Senegal and is working on introducing kids from his West African country to baseball.
Cedar Falls High School graduate Connor Schultz has taken the hard road to affiliated professional baseball. After four years at Butler University and one at the University of Iowa, the right-handed pitcher played independent ball in Montana before the Chicago Cubs offered him a contract last summer. He’s in the Midwest League this season with the South Bend Cubs, who are playing this week at Cedar Rapids
The Iowa Heartlanders qualified for the ECHL playoffs for the first time in their four-year existence. They won their first playoff game. But winning their first playoff series will have to wait. Fort Wayne scored three goals in the third period and went on to beat the Heartlanders, 4-1, in the deciding Game 7 of the ECHL first-round playoff series.
Kaelen Culpepper had a three-run home run and career-high five RBIs, and Danny DeAndrade also homered as the Cedar Rapids Kernels beat Wisconsin, 8-1, Sunday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
The Fort Wayne Komets scored twice in the first period and beat the Iowa Heartlanders, 6-1, Sunday in Game 6 of their ECHL first-round playoff series. The teams play a winner-take-all Game 7 Tuesday night in Indiana.
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