Cal Baseball: Bears Finish Nonconference Schedule with 2-1 Win over Pacific
California improves to 25-23 on the season after their pitching staff carries them to victory over the Tigers
STOCKTON – Coming off another ACC series loss, California looked to bounce back from their offensive slump against Virginia Tech, where they dropped two of three, by picking up one last win in nonconference/out of conference play in the 2026 regular season – this time against the University of the Pacific Tigers.
Once the program led by Cal’s Mike Neu (2016-2017), UoP hosted the Golden Bears in Stockton, CA, as they embarked on one final road trip for the 2026 season, heading to Virginia to take on the Cavaliers this weekend. Pacific came into Tuesday night’s game at 20-25, but remains in the hunt for a WCC title, as they are competitively at 12-9 in conference play, sitting in third place out of the 10 teams, while only San Francisco (13-8) and Gonzaga (16-5) stand above them.
California came into Tuesday night at 24-23 with two straight ACC series losses and a midweek loss to Davis, putting the team in a bit of a slump while they are depleted in star power. Cal’s pitching had been its sole hope day in and day out, with the weekend rotation of starters each picking up a quality start over 18.0 combined IP and an ERA of 3.00. That pitching dependency on Cal was even more evident against the Tigers, with Tanner Grove getting the start for the Bears and putting up a stellar 4.0 IP, allowing just two hits and two walks and striking out four in his second start of the season.
Cal’s offense once again came out with no momentum but struck first in the top half of the 4th against UoP’s Liam Smith, who has not pitched in a game that the Tigers have won since March 3rd, pitching in nine straight losses in that span. Daniel Murillo got the 4th started with a one-out single, and scored on an RBI single from Cade Campbell for his 17th of the season. The Bears would add one more in the 6th to take a 2-0 lead on back-to-back hits from Hideki Prather and Daniel Murillo, the latter of the two hitting an RBI-double down the left field line to give Cal’ their inevitable “winning” run.
Ryan Spalliero would relieve Grove in the 5th, and after allowing just one hit, would be relieved by Jett Wright in the 6th. Wright would strike out Jake Tandy to lead off the inning, but he then hit MacArthur with a pitch and walked Spear to put two runners on, thus bringing Cade Colombara in to pitch for the Bears. Colombara would surrender an RBI single to JT Shank to make it 2-1, and with some clutch pitching from California in the 7th from Trent Roach, Cal would pull away in this low-scoring game with a 2-1 victory at Klein Family Field.
California will travel to No. 23 Virginia, sitting at 25-23 after winning two straight, and play in their second-to-last ACC series of the season before taking on Stanford at Stu Gordon Stadium. Cal’s final road trip of the regular season will be streamed on ACCNX/ESPN+ - Friday’s game will be at 3:00 PM, Saturday at 1:00 PM, and Sunday at 10:00 AM (all PST).
When the season started I wasn’t sure what to expect from the pitching staff but, especially after learning of Turkington’s seaon ending injury, wasn’t confident the staff could measure up to the majority of ACC foes. Now the Bears are showing they’ve got a rotation that’s upper-half quality compared to the others in the conference. Alas, it’s the offensive production that couldn’t weather a spike in injuries. Nevertheless, in view of my limited expectations, it is exciting now to see if the Bears will muster an above .500 season overall. They can do this as long as they don’t lose both of their final two series. GO BEARS!