Cal Baseball: California Beats San Francisco 8-0

California earns their first shutout of the season and moves to 15-16 after seven pitchers combine for a two-hitter.

Coming off a rough weekend at Stu Gordon Stadium, the Golden Bears may have gotten Easter Sunday off, but it was back-to-business on Monday afternoon, as California began their four-game road trip across the bay with an afternoon stop in San Francisco before heading to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to take on the Panthers for an early ACC weekend.

Coming into Monday morning, the San Francisco Dons were 16-13 and had lost their prior series to LMU after winning seven of their nine WCC games. Cal entered the morning and Benedetti Diamond at 14-16, having lost 13 of their last 14 games.

Jacob French in his first game back with the Bears since 3/20 (via @CalBaseball on X)

Coming off a few days short of rest, Mike Neu gave the early midweek start back to Otto Espinoza after the freshman right-hander could not record a second out in his start against Georgia Tech on Thursday. With USF’s Alan Gonzalez getting the start for the Dons, he retired the Bears’ first six batters as Cal’s offensive struggles looked to continue. Espinoza was locked back into his usual performance as well, retiring his first seven batters before walking back-to-back Dons in the 3rd.

The Bears would give the game some offensive life in the top half of the 4^th as Hideki Prather led off the inning by reaching base on a HBP and scored on a Jacob French double in his first game back since March 20^th. French would then score on a wild pitch later in the inning, and Cal would take a 2-0 lead.

Jett Wright replaced Otto Espinoza on the mound in the bottom half of the 4^th, and the Cal bullpen managed to pitch a two-pitch shutout behind four freshmen pitchers and impressive innings of work by returning players such as Jordy Lopez and Ryan Spalliero. Cal’s offense remained extremely quiet up until the top half of the 7^th, when Kalen Applefield led off the inning with a base hit and scored on an error/bunt-base hit to start a rally that had Cal plate across three more runs on a couple of sac-flys and an RBI-double from Joshua Hanson to make it a 6-0 game.

Jett Wright earned the win in Cal’s 8-0 victory over USF (via CalBears.com)

The Bears would add two more insurance runs in the top half of the 8^th with freshman shortstop Jett Kenady leading off the inning with a double to right off of Magnus Nelson, and grad-transfer Daniel Murillo following with a double of his own to make it a 7-0 game. Murillo would eventually score in the inning on a fielder’s choice/double-play, and Cal would go on to win this Monday afternoon game by a final score of 8-0.

The Bears improve to 15-16 and move on to Pittsburgh, where they will face off against the Panthers on Friday at 3:00 PM, Saturday at 12:00 PM, and Sunday at 10:00 AM (Pacific Standard Time). All games will be streamed on ACCNX/ESPN+.