Baseball Game Preview: Manchester Essex Hornets vs. Newburyport Clippers

Manchester Essex and Newburyport are an even 5-5 against one another since April of 2015, but likely not for long. The Hornets will take on the Clippers at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Manchester Essex will be looking to extend their current four-game winning streak.

On Monday, Manchester Essex beat Pentucket Regional 9-5.

Meanwhile, it may have taken eight innings to finish the job, but Newburyport ultimately got the result they hoped for on Thursday. They narrowly escaped with a win as the squad sidled past Lynn English 3-2.

Newburyport got a great performance from Sam Luekens as he didn't allow a single earned run while striking out 12 over 6.2 innings pitched.

On the hitting side, Newburyport's victory was truly a team effort as seven different players contributed at least one hit. One of them was Tim Degraves, who went 1-for-3 with two stolen bases and one run. Degraves is becoming a predictor of the Clippers' success: when he posts at least two stolen bases the team is undefeated (and 2-5 when he doesn't).

The win got Newburyport back to even at 5-5. As for Manchester Essex, they now have a winning record of 5-4.