Baseball Preview: Portola Tigers vs. Chester Volcanoes
Portola is 2-8 against Chester since April of 2019 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Friday. The Portola Tigers will head out on the road to face off against the Chester Volcanoes at 4:00 p.m. Portola is strutting in with some hitting muscle, as they've averaged 6.3 runs per game this season.
On Wednesday, Portola fell victim to a tough 16-1 defeat at the hands of El Dorado.
Johnny Stewart was cooking despite his team's loss, going 2-for-2 with two stolen bases and an RBI. He is on a roll when it comes to stolen bases, as he's now stolen two or more in the last three games he's played.
Meanwhile, Chester had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 24.5 runs), and they went ahead and made it three on Tuesday. They walked away with a 6-2 win over the Raiders.
Chester got a big performance out of Callan Wiseman, who went 2-for-3 with two RBI and a double. The team also got some help courtesy of Jax Holland, who went 1-for-4 with a home run.
Portola now has a losing record at 5-6. As for Chester, their victory bumped their record up to 6-4.
The pitchers for both teams better look sharp on Friday as neither team is afraid to steal. Portola has been swiping bases left and right this season, having averaged 5.4 stolen bases per game. However, it's not like Chester struggles in that department as they've been averaging 4.5. The only question left is which team can snag more.
Portola suffered a grim 12-2 defeat to Chester in their previous matchup back in April of 2023. Thankfully for Portola, Connor Barr (who struck out seven batters over five innings while giving up just one earned (and one unearned) run off two hits) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
