Kernels Hang On to Take Game One in Quad Cities 9-8

Davenport, IA - After opening a 9-3 lead, Cedar Rapids fended off a late Quad Cities comeback to take game one of the series over the River Bandits 9-8 Tuesday night.

After a 1:18 rain delay began the evening on Tuesday, the Cedar Rapids offense came swinging out of the gates. In the top of the first inning, one-out walks to Ricardo Olivar, and Gabriel Gonzalez put two on for Kevin Maitan who put the Kernels on the board with an RBI double. The next batter, Rubel Cespedes, doubled the lead on an RBI single and behind him, Jay Harry made it 3-0 Cedar Rapids on a sacrifice fly.

But in the theme that continued throughout the night, Quad Cities had the answer. In the bottom of the first, a walk and a single put two on for Spencer Nivens who made it 3-2 with a two-run single.

In the fourth, the Kernels grew the lead up to four. A Misael Urbina walk, and an error put a pair on for Rayne Doncon, who made it a 5-2 game with a two-run double. Three batters later, Doncon scored on Maitan’s second RBI double of the night to up the Kernels edge to 6-2.

Quad Cities made it 6-3 on a Jared Dickey solo home run in the bottom of the fourth.

That stayed the score until the Kernels took their biggest lead of the night in the top of the seventh. A Doncon walk and a Maitan hit-by-pitch put a pair of runners on for Cespedes, who blasted his third home run in two games, a three-run shot to put the Kernels up by six at 9-3.

Trailing by six, Quad Cities began its late-inning rally in the bottom of the sixth. A pair of walks and a wild pitch put a runner on third for Jared Dickey, who made it 9-4 with a sacrifice fly.

In the seventh, Nivens crushed a solo home run to make it 9-5.

In the eighth, three hits loaded the bases with no outs, and after a walk plated a run to make it 9-6, Gabriel Yanez entered out of the Cedar Rapids bullpen and struck out the side to get out of the inning, but he did allow one more bases-loaded walk to make it 9-7.

Down by just two in the bottom of the ninth, two singles and a walk loaded the bases with one out. A wild pitch scored a run to make it 9-8 and moved the game-tying run to third and the game-winning run to second. But Yanez got a fly out to center field to end the game and hold on for the 9-8 victory.

The win improves Cedar Rapids to 11-2 vs Quad Cities this year, 15-10 in the second half and 52-37 overall. Game two of the six-game series is set for tomorrow at 6:30 with John Klein on the mound opposite Hunter Owen.