Baseball Preview: Batavia Bulldogs vs. New Richmond Lions
The Batavia Bulldogs have the luxury of staying home for another game and will welcome the New Richmond Lions at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Both teams have allowed few runs on average, (Batavia: 2.6, New Richmond: 3.6) so any runs scored will be well earned.
On Thursday, Batavia was able to grind out a solid win over Little Miami, taking the game 4-1. That's two games straight that Batavia has won by exactly three runs.
The team relied heavily on Brayden Schmittou, who went 2-for-3 with two runs, a triple, and a double. Wes Embry was another key contributor, scoring two runs while going 3-for-3.
Meanwhile, while it was New Richmond who put the first points on the board on Wednesday, it was Western Brown who put up more. New Richmond took a 10-5 hit to the loss column at the hands of Western Brown. New Richmond has not had much luck with Western Brown recently, as the team's come up short the last three times they've met.
New Richmond saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Bryce Wilfert, who scored a run while going 2-for-3. Another player making a difference was Derrick Klinker, who scored a run and stole a base while going 2-for-3.
Batavia is on a roll lately: they've won 12 of their last 13 games, which provided a nice bump to their 18-2 record this season. As for New Richmond, their defeat dropped their record down to 11-9.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Friday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Batavia has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 7 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like New Richmond struggles in that department as they've been averaging 6.8. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Batavia beat New Richmond 4-0 when the teams last played last Monday. One of the biggest obstacles the team faced in that game was New Richmond's Carson Kuhlman, who struck out ten batters over seven innings while giving up just one earned (and three unearned) runs off nine hits (and not a single walk). Now that he's got a second chance to win this matchup, will Batavia still be able to contain Kuhlman? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
