Baseball Game Preview: Arkadelphia Badgers vs. Bauxite Miners

Arkadelphia has won eight straight games at home, while Bauxite has won eight straight on the road, but those streaks won't matter much on Thursday. The Badgers will welcome the Miners at 5:00 p.m. Arkadelphia's pitching crew has only allowed three runs per game this season, so Bauxite's hitters will have their work cut out for them.

On Tuesday, Arkadelphia needed a bit of extra time to put away De Queen. They had just enough and edged out the Leopards 3-2. Three seems to be a good number for the Badgers as the team scooped up a win with the same number of runs in their previous game.

Meanwhile, Bauxite won against Rose Bud on Monday with eight runs and they decided to stick to that run total again on Tuesday. Everything went the Miners' way against Fountain Lake as they made off with an 8-2 victory. Considering the Miners have won ten contests by more than five runs this season, Tuesday's blowout was nothing new.

Austin Hastings looked comfortable as he pitched two innings while giving up no earned runs or hits. What's more, he posted three strikeouts, the most he's had since back in April of 2024.

On the hitting side, the team relied heavily on Drake Pettus, who scored a run and stole a base while going 2-for-3. The team also got some help courtesy of Landyn Marshall, who scored two runs while going 3-for-4.

Bauxite was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .379. That was just more of the same: they've now posted a batting average of .333 or higher in three consecutive games.

Bauxite has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won seven of their last eight matchups. That's provided a massive bump to their 13-7 record this season. Those wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 10.0 runs over those games. As for Arkadelphia, their victory bumped their record up to 15-2.

Arkadelphia took their win against Bauxite in their previous matchup back in April of 2022 by a conclusive 13-6 score. Will the Badgers repeat their success, or do the Miners have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.