Baseball Game Preview: Western Reserve Blue Devils vs. East

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Previous 4 Games

04/05/25 - Away	3-1 W
04/05/25 - Away	13-7 W
04/14/24 - Away	20-1 W
04/14/24 - Away	17-4 W

Western Reserve has gone a perfect 4-0 against East recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Thursday. The Blue Devils will look to defend their home field against East at 5:00 p.m. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Western Reserve has four straight wins, East has three straight losses), but none of that matters once you're on the field.

Western Reserve will bounce into Thursday's contest after beating Jackson-Milton, who they had gone 2-7 against in their nine prior meetings. The Blue Devils walked away with an 8-4 victory over the Bluejays on Wednesday.

Peyton Hartzell was excellent, going 2-for-3 with three RBI and one run. That's the most RBI he has posted since back in April of 2024. Another player making a difference was Hunter Stacy, who went 2-for-4 with two RBI.

Meanwhile, East lost 10-2 to Southeast on Wednesday. That's two games in a row now that East has lost by exactly eight runs.

East saw three different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Yadiel Lopez, who went 1-for-3 with one RBI.

Western Reserve pushed their record up to 10-5 with the win, which was their third straight at home. Those home victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 3.0 runs on average over those games. As for East, their defeat dropped their record down to 5-11.

East's pitching crew has a crucial task ahead of them: Western Reserve hasn't had any issues making contact this season, having earned a batting average of .331. It's a different story for East, though, as they've only averaged .239. Will they be able to contain Western Reserve's hitters?

Western Reserve came out on top in a nail-biter against East in their previous meeting back in April, sneaking past 3-1. Will the Blue Devils repeat their success, or do East have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.