Cal Baseball: Aggies Defeat Bears 6-1 in Makeup Game in Berkeley
UC Davis heads back east on I-80 with a win over the Bears in Berkeley
BERKELEY – Coming off a 6-5 win on Tuesday night in Moraga, the Bears returned to action on Wednesday night for a back-to-back slate of games to make up not just the rained-out game against Saint Mary’s from last month, but also the canceled game against UC Davis from February 24th.
Getting the start for California against the UC Davis Aggies last night was freshman lefty Tanner Grove, who made his first start for the Golden Bears after pitching in five prior relief appearances on the season thus far. The Cal Aggies threw Pitcher/DH Brayden Wooldridge out as their starter against the Bears, as the Glendora High School alum is in his senior season after earning All-Big West Team Honorable Mention honors last year.
Grove got the Bears started by striking out the side in the top of the 1st, and Hideki Prather led off the bottom half of the inning with a home run to left after falling behind 0-2 in the count against Wooldridge. Grove mowed through the Aggies’ lineup from there until UC Davis got on the board with a Jaxon Murphy solo shot to right to make it a 1-1 ball game. Grove would not return for the top half of the 5th inning as Quinn Larson would come in to relieve him, and Larson would get Wooldridge to fly out before walking Joey Wright and hitting Zach Story with a 3-2 fastball, thus ending his night and bringing in Trent Roach from the bullpen. Roach would give up an immediate two-RBI triple to Tyler Howard to surrender the lead to the Aggies, and Kai Mault would follow with a base hit to right to give the Aggies a 4-1 lead heading into the latter half of this game.
Ryan Spalliero came in to relieve Roach in the top of the 7th, and after getting Wooldridge to ground out to short, Spalliero walked Wright, gave up a single to Story, Howard, and Mault to give UC Davis their fifth run of the ballgame before spiking a pitch in the dirt and allowing Howard to score on a wild pitch and make it 6-1 Aggies.
Cal would not get any offensive momentum or juice flowing in the remainder of this game, as UC Davis would pull away with their 6-1 lead with ease and leave Berkeley with a win, thus Cal officially split the season series with UC Davis after winning 7-2 on February 25th and losing last night by a final score of 6-1. California moves to 23-21 on the season and will host Virginia Tech at home in Berkeley this weekend for an ACC series at Stu Gordon Stadium. All games will be streamed on ACCNX/ESPN+. (Friday @ 6:05 PM, Saturday @ 2:05 PM, and Sunday @ 1:05 PM).