Baseball Preview: Hoover Cardinals vs. Kearny Komets
Hoover and Kearny are an even 5-5 against one another since May of 2021, but likely not for long. The Hoover Cardinals will look to defend their home field on Wednesday against the Kearny Komets at 4:00 p.m. The two teams are strolling into their contests after big wins in their previous games.
If Hoover beats Kearny with six runs on Wednesday, it's going to be the squad's new lucky number: they've won their past two matchups with that exact score. Hoover never let Crawford onto the board and left with a 6-0 victory on Friday. The win made it back-to-back victories for Hoover.
Not much got past Manny Miranda, who gave up just three hits and racked up 14 Ks to keep Crawford off the board. Miranda has been consistent recently: he hasn't tossed less than five strikeouts in five consecutive pitching appearances.
On the hitting side, Quincy Enyama-Turner was incredible, scoring a run and stealing three bases while going 2-for-2.
Meanwhile, Kearny had already won six in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 9.2 runs), and they went ahead and made it seven on Friday. They blew past the Storm 12-2. The result was nothing new for Kearny, who have now won seven games by six runs or more so far this season.
Nicolas Hembera made a big impact no matter where he played. On the mound, he didn't allow a single earned run over six innings pitched. Hembera was also big at the plate, scoring a run and stealing a base while going 2-for-4.
In other batting news, Elijah Duffy was incredible, scoring two runs and stealing two bases while going 3-for-5. Laird Eaton was another key contributor, scoring a run and stealing a base while going 1-for-3.
Hoover's win ended a four-game drought at home and bumped them up to 7-11. As for Kearny, they pushed their record up to 12-8 with that victory, which was their fourth straight at home.
The pitchers for both teams better look sharp on Wednesday as neither team is afraid to steal. Hoover has been swiping bases left and right this season, having averaged 3.3 stolen bases per game. However, it's not like Kearny struggles in that department as they've been averaging 3.6. The only question left is which team can snag more.
Hoover came up short against Kearny when the teams last played on April 12th, falling 5-1. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Hembera, who didn't allow a single earned run while striking out nine over seven innings pitched. Now that Hoover knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
