The Bloomington Bruins will head out to square off against the Kaiser Cats at 3:45 p.m. on Monday. Bloomington has a tough task ahead: they'll enter the match with four straight losses, while Kaiser will come in with three straight wins.
On Saturday, Bloomington came up short against Summit and fell 5-1.
Bloomington got a good showing from Jordan Castrejon, who pitched two innings while giving up no earned runs off one hit. Castrejon has been consistent: he hasn't given up more than one earned run in eight consecutive appearances.
At the plate, Bloomington saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Nathan Martin, who went 1-for-3 with one run.
Meanwhile, Kaiser got the win against San Gorgonio on Saturday by a conclusive 11-2.
Zeke Isaak Cortez made a big impact while hitting and pitching. He pitched one inning while giving up no earned runs or hits. He also tossed no earned runs, which is notable because Kaiser is 9-1 when he allows at most one earned run, but 6-8 otherwise. Cortez was also solid in the batter's box, going a perfect 1-for-1 with one triple and two RBI.
In other pitching news, Dom Roybal looked comfortable as he tossed two innings while giving up no earned runs off two hits.
Back at the plate, the team relied heavily on Tino Isaiah Cuellar, who got on base in three of his five plate appearances with two stolen bases, two runs, and two RBI. That's the most stolen bases he has posted since back in March. The team also got some help courtesy of Marcus Cortez, who got on base in all four of his plate appearances with one run.
Kaiser hit smart and finished the game with only two strikeouts. The team has now struck out at least five batters in five consecutive games.
Kaiser pushed their record up to 15-9 with the victory, which was their third straight at home. Those home wins came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 2.0 runs on average over those games. As for Bloomington, their defeat dropped their record down to 8-16.
Bloomington might still be hurting after the 7-0 loss they got from Kaiser when the teams last played back in April. Can the Bruins avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
