Baseball Game Preview: King City Mustangs vs. Watsonville Wildcatz

For the second straight game, King City will face off against Watsonville. The Mustangs will be playing at home against the Wildcatz at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday. King City is coming into the matchup on a five-game losing streak.

King City came into this matchup off a tough ten-run loss on Thursday. This time they kept things ultra-competitive, but unfortunately the final result was the same. They fell just short of Watsonville by a score of 3-1 on Tuesday. For those keeping track at home, that's the closest defeat the Mustangs have suffered since May 1, 2024.

For Watsonville's part, Rudy Valdez spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered a run (which was unearned) on four hits and racked up 13 Ks. Valdez also tossed no earned runs, which is notable because the Wildcatz are 4-2 when he allows at most one earned run, but 7-9 otherwise.

At the plate, the team relied heavily on Patrick Miller - Brown, who went 3-for-4 with one home run. He is becoming a predictor of Watsonville's success: when he posts at least one home run the team is undefeated (and 8-11 when he doesn't). Another player making a difference was Kaden Ortiz, who got on base in two of his four plate appearances with two stolen bases and one run.

Watsonville is on a roll lately: they've won 11 of their last 13 games. That's provided a massive bump to their 11-11 record this season. Those wins came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 3.8 runs on average over those games. As for King City, their loss dropped their record down to 6-15.