The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers finished their two-week road trip with a 5-1 victory over the Cedar Rapids Kernels Sunday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Wisconsin scored all five of their runs after two outs and Jayden Dubanewicz worked five shutout innings to get the win.
Cedar Rapids (44-68 overall, 13-35 second half) lost their starting pitcher on the third batter of the game. Kolten Smith was tended to three times on the mound during the inning left due to illness with an 0-2 count on Daniel Dickinson, the Rattlers third batter of the game. Ivran Romero took over on the mound and retired Dickinson on one pitch.
Wisconsin (60-49, 26-21) had two outs with none on in the top of the third inning against Romero. The offense started to click with four consecutive singles to plate two runs. Luis Peña and Sawyer Strosnider started the rally with singles. Dickinson followed with a single to knock in Peña and get Strosnider to third. Eric Bitonti was next and he ripped a single to right to score Strosnider for a 2-0 lead to knock Romero out of the game.
Yeizhon Sanchez, the Kernels third pitcher of the game, got the final out of the third, pitched a scoreless fourth, and got the first two outs of the fifth. Then, the Rattlers staged another two-out rally in the fifth. Dickinson and Bitonti drew walks to keep the inning alive. Luis Castillo and Tayden Hall delivered consecutive RBI singles for a 4-0 lead.
Dubanewicz, the Wisconsin starting pitcher, had a big bounce back outing on Sunday. In game one of the series on August 11, Dubanewicz gave up five runs in three innings to be tagged with the loss. In the series finale, Dubanewicz tossed five scoreless innings, allowed three hits, walked none, and struck out three.
Wisconsin missed some chances to extend their lead. They loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the seventh against Mike McKenna but failed to score. Position player Quinn McDaniel took over in the eighth inning and walked the first three Rattlers he faced before escaping the inning.
Cedar Rapids had something going against José Nova in the bottom of the eighth when Nova hit a batter and gave up a single to the first two Kernels he faced. Nova regrouped and got a strikeout and a double play to maintain the 4-0 lead.
Luiyin Alastre added an insurance run in the top of the ninth with another two-out, RBI single to scored Castillo.
Danny DeAndrade homered to start the Cedar Rapids ninth inning against Michael Fowler. McDaniel followed with a double. Fowler struck out the next three batters to close out the game and Wisconsin’s third win in a row.
Wisconsin wrapped their twelve-game road trip with a 7-5 record. They went 4-2 in a series at Beloit and split their six-game series with the Kernels. The Rattlers will enter the final three weeks of the season 2-1/2 games behind the Quad Cities River Bandits and Beloit Sky Carp. Quad Cities is percentage points ahead of the Sky Carp after Sunday’s action was completed.
The Timber Rattlers are off on Monday. They return to action on Tuesday night in game one of a twelve-game homestand at Neuroscience Group Field. The opponents on Tuesday are the Lake County Captains with Jacob Morrison (1-1, 4.15) as the scheduled starting pitcher for Wisconsin. Game time is 6:40pm.
