Baseball Game Preview: Gunnison Cowboys vs. Delta Panthers

Gunnison is 1-9 against Delta since April of 2018 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Saturday. The Cowboys will host the Panthers at 11:00 a.m. Gunnison will aim to continue their three-game streak of scoring more runs each match than the last.

Gunnison fought the good fight in their extra-innings contest against Basalt on Saturday but wound up with a less-than-desirable result. They fell just short of the Longhorns by a score of 15-14. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game on Saturday (ten), the Cowboys still had to take the loss.

Meanwhile, Delta had already won six in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 10.7 runs) and they went ahead and made it seven on Tuesday. Their pitcher stepped up to hand the Skiers a 15-0 shutout. The result was nothing new for the Panthers, who have now won nine games by six runs or more so far this season.

Ripp Lockhart made a splash no matter where he played. He kept things locked down with no earned runs or hits over four innings pitched. Lockhart was also big at the plate, going 2-for-3 with two doubles and two RBI. That's the most doubles he has posted since back in March.

In other batting news, the team relied heavily on Davion Lopez, who scored four runs while getting on base in all four of his plate appearances. Those four runs gave him a new career-high. Another player making a difference was Rylan Cryer, who got on base in three of his four plate appearances with three RBI and one double.

Delta was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .409. That was just more of the same: they've now posted a batting average of .318 or higher in seven consecutive matches.

Delta pushed their record up to 11-5 with the victory, which was their sixth straight at home. Those home wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 13.0 runs over those games. As for Gunnison, they now have a losing record of 6-7.

Gunnison might still be hurting after the 11-2 loss they got from Delta in their previous meeting back in April of 2024. Can the Cowboys avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.