Baseball Game Preview: Seaside Spartans vs. Watsonville Wildcatz

For the second straight game, Seaside will face off against Watsonville. The Spartans will welcome the Wildcatz at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday. Seaside has a tough task ahead: they'll enter the match with ten straight defeats, while Watsonville will come in with eight straight victories.

Tuesday just wasn't the day for Seaside's offense. They came up short against Watsonville on Tuesday, falling 16-0.

For Watsonville's part, Rudy Valdez made a big impact no matter where he played. On the mound, he didn't allow a single earned run while striking out 12 over five innings pitched. Those 12 strikeouts gave Valdez a new career-high. He was also big at the plate, scoring three runs and stealing a base while getting on base in three of his four plate appearances. He has become a key player for Watsonville: the team is 8-3 when he posts at least two runs, but 0-6 otherwise.

In other batting news, Patrick Miller - Brown was incredible, going a perfect 3-for-3 with two stolen bases, three runs, and four RBI. Those four RBI gave him a new career-high. Another player making a difference was Kaden Ortiz, who scored two runs while getting on base in three of his four plate appearances.

Watsonville was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .529. That was just more of the same: they've now posted a batting average of .348 or higher in nine consecutive games.

Watsonville pushed their record up to 8-9 with the win, which was their fourth straight at home. The home victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 3.5 runs on average over those games. As for Seaside, their loss dropped their record down to 0-8.