Bandits Outslugged in Game Three Loss

Davenport, Iowa – In their first postseason game at Modern Woodmen Park in 2021, the Quad Cities River Bandits left 13 runners aboard and were out homered by four, as they fell to the Cedar Rapids Kernels 8-4 on Friday to fall behind 2-1 in the High-A Central Championship Series.

Despite struggling with runners on, Quad Cities did capitalize in the first inning against Casey Legumina and got an RBI knock from Logan Porter who plated Maikel Garcia’s leadoff single.

The Kernels wasted no time responding with runs of their own in the second and quickly leapfrogged the Bandits’ first-inning tally with a two-run homer off the bat of DaShawn Keirsey Jr.

Although Bandits’ starter Dante Biasi recorded five strikeouts in 2.1 innings of work, he fell into trouble in the third as a pair of hits from Aaron Sabato and Seth Gray and a walk from Alex Isola loaded the bases. But, with Jefferson Morales at the plate, the game went into an hour and a half rain delay.

When the game resumed, it was Kasey Kalich taking over mid at-bat and striking the Kernels’ designated hitter out on a slider. The righty then got out of the jam all together and got DaShawn Keirsey to fly out to end the threat.

After neither team scored in the third, with Aaron Rozek stranding a pair of Bandits’ runners in the frame, Cedar Rapids launched a pair of home runs off of Kalich, including a solo homer by Edouard Julien and a three-run blast by Isola that came after a Kalich walk and hit-by-pitch.

Trialing 6-1, Quad Cities loaded the bases with no one out in the fifth to chase Rozek from his start, but only scratched across one run on a Logan Porter sacrifice-fly as newly entered Derek Molina got John Rave to pop out and Eric Cole to ground out to limit the damage.

Patrick Smith worked the Bandit staff’s first one-two-three inning of the game in the top of the fifth, but fell victim to the Kernels’ fourth homer, a second Julien solo shot to right center. After a Helman double and a wild pitch, the Bandits’ deficit grew to 8-2 as Matt Wallner drove in a run on sac-fly.

In the seventh, Q.C. took advantage of a Nick Loftin leadoff single and a Julien error that allowed Michael Massey to reach as John Rave, the first man to face Carlos Suniaga, drove in both with an RBI single up the middle to trim the Kernels’ lead to 8-4.

Anderson Paulino and Mitch Ellis combined to toss three scoreless innings, including five of the staff’s 17 strikeouts, but Suniaga shut the door on the Cedar Rapids’ win and stranded a pair in a scoreless eighth and ninth.

Thanks to two innings of one-run relief, Aaron Rozek (1-0) got the win for the Kernels, while Biasi (0-1), who gave up two in 2.1 frames, was tagged with the loss.

The River Bandits will look to re-even the series in Game Four of the five-game set on Saturday night at Modern Woodmen Park, as they toss Charlie Neuweiler (2-3, 4.81) against Cedar Rapids’ Sawyer Gipson-Long (3-3, 4.55) for a 6:30 p.m. CDT first pitch.