Baseball Game Preview: Royal Highlanders vs. Highland Bulldogs

The Royal Highlanders will challenge the Highland Bulldogs at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. Royal's pitching crew has only allowed 1.7 runs per game this season, so Highland's hitters will have their work cut out for them.

Royal took a loss when they played away from home on Saturday, but their home fans gave them all the motivation they needed on Tuesday. They never let San Marino get on the board and left with a 3-0 victory.

Royal's win was truly a team effort as six different players contributed at least one hit. One of them was Caden Sramek, who fired off two home runs while going 2-for-3. Those two home runs gave Sramek a new career-high.

Meanwhile, Highland gave up the first runs on Wednesday, but they didn't let that get them down. Everything went their way against Littlerock as they made off with a 10-2 victory. The win made it back-to-back victories for the Bulldogs.

Jacob Aragon tossed a big game, striking out 11 batters over 5.2 innings while giving up just one earned (and one unearned) run off four hits. He has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't given up more than two walks in four consecutive appearances.

On the hitting side, Highland got a big performance out of Hudson Harding, who scored three runs while going 2-for-4. The team also got some help courtesy of Nick Gonzales, who went 3-for-5 with two runs and one triple.

Highland was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .385. They are 5-1 when they post a batting average of .375 or better.

Royal pushed their record up to 13-2 with the win, which was their eighth straight at home. Those home victories came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 8.8 runs over those games. As for Highland, their win bumped their record up to 8-5-1.