Baseball Game Preview: Toll Gate Titans vs. East Providence Townies

The Toll Gate Titans will head out on the road to face off against the East Providence Townies at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. Neither Toll Gate nor East Providence posted many runs in their last games, so it might be the pitching crews that decide this one.

Toll Gate is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Rhode Island's top teams: East Greenwich, who was ranked fourth at the time (Toll Gate was ranked eighth). The Titans fell 6-1 to the Avengers on Wednesday. That's two games in a row now that the Titans have lost by exactly five runs.

Toll Gate saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Jonah LaFauci, who scored a run while going 2-for-3. Geoffrey Laliberte also deserves some recognition as he got his first hit of the season.

Meanwhile, East Providence wound up with the same score they had in their last game (4-1), but sadly the team found themselves on the wrong side of the score this time. They have struggled against the Rebels recently, as the game was their fifth consecutive lost meeting.

Having lost for the first time this season, East Providence fell to 5-1. As for Toll Gate, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 1-4.

The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Friday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Toll Gate has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 7.4 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like East Providence struggles in that department as they've been averaging an even more impressive 7.8 strikeouts. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.

Toll Gate skirted past East Providence 5-4 in their previous meeting back in May of 2021. The rematch might be a little tougher for the Titans since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.