Baseball Game Preview: Cranston West Falcons vs. Cumberland Clippers

The Cranston West Falcons are taking a road trip to take on the Cumberland Clippers at 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Both come into the contest bolstered by wins in their previous matches.

Cranston West is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Rhode Island's top teams: Barrington, who was ranked seventh at the time (Cranston West was ranked tenth). The Falcons were the clear victors by a 7-1 margin over the Eagles on Saturday. The victory made it back-to-back wins for the Falcons.

Alex Milano was a major factor while hitting and pitching. He struck out nine batters over seven innings while giving up just one earned run off four hits. He is becoming a predictor of Cranston West's success: when he allows at most one earned run the team is 2-1 (and 9-11 when he doesn't). Milano was also big at the plate, getting on base in three of his four plate appearances with one stolen base, one run, and one RBI.

Chris Barboza

Stolen Base (Career)

05/24/25 @ Barrington	2
05/20/25 @ Portsmouth	1
05/18/25 vs Moses Brown	1
05/16/25 @ North Kingstown	1
05/14/25 vs North Kingstown	1

In other batting news, Chris Barboza was excellent, going 2-for-4 with two stolen bases and one run. Those two stolen bases gave him a new career-high. Logan Taylor was another key player, going 1-for-4 with two runs and one RBI.

Meanwhile, Cumberland waltzed into their matchup on Tuesday with eight straight wins... but they left with nine. They never let the Patriots get on the board and left with a 1-0 win.

Cumberland also got a great performance from Marcus Gomes as he didn't allow a single earned run and allowed only one hit over five innings pitched.

On the hitting side, Cumberland saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Andrew Nocera, who went 1-for-4 with one home run. That home run marked the first that Nocera has launched this season.

Cumberland's victory was their fifth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 16-4. The home wins came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 2.6 runs on average over those games. As for Cranston West, their record now sits at 11-12.