Cal Baseball Season Preview: Green and Lomavita lead a potent offense

It was a rather eventful opening weekend for Cal Softball (5-1) down in Louisiana

There is nothing quite like the optimism of Opening Day, whether at the MLB level or the collegiate level. This is the last day where fans can wishfully think that all of the last season's problems may be solved by those highly touted freshmen (or transfers, this is 2024) and every returning player made huge improvements in the offseason.

Cal Baseball will open the 2024 season this afternoon from Scottsdale, Arizona, playing at the showcase that is the MLB Desert Invitational. Scouts will be fixated on the top of the Cal lineup where both catcher Caleb Lomavita and center fielder Rodney Green Jr. are top-100 ranked prospects for this summer’s 2024 MLB Draft. While both juniors will have the option (or leverage) to return to school in 2025, Cal fans should cherish this season as the likely end of their exciting college career.

Outside these two bright stars, little else is certain for Cal Baseball in head coach Mike Neu’s 7th season at the helm. Cal should have an exciting offense again that is capable of hitting many homers. Pitching will again be a huge mystery of seeing who and how many guys will earn Neu’s trust to be reliable arms on the weekends. Given Neu’s pedigree as a former MLB pitcher and previous Cal pitching coach, one has to be surprised by how many games in the past few seasons were bullpen games where guys were pushed to go as long as effective.

Last year, the Golden Bears came within one homer shy of the all-time program record (86, set in 1999 behind 23 long balls from Xavier Nady - a single-season program record matched by Andrew Vaughn in 2018) in home runs when they hit 85 round-trippers. The bulk of that lineup is back, led by Lomavita (16), Green (14), Carson Crawford (13), and the late-season bloomer Max Handron (9).

Bears did strike gold with the transfer and former Ivy League Player of the Year in Kade Kretzschmar, who hit 13 homers with a team-high 0.322 batting average. Outfielder Alec Ritch will hopefully fill that role as this year’s graduate transfer from a smaller school (Middlebury College in DIII NESCAC). Ritch already has 69 career stolen bases including 41 in his junior season.

Up the middle for the Bears may be two freshmen starters in PJ Moutzouridis and Jarren Advincula. To be penciled into the starting lineup as a freshman should mean great innate defensive and hitting ability.

Looking at the listed starting pitchers for this opening weekend, freshman RHP Trey Newmann will be the starter today. The 6’ 6” righty will hopefully lock down one of the weekend rotation spots, even if it may be unrealistic to expect a true freshman to dominate out of the gate.

LHP Luke Short, a graduate transfer from DII St. Edwards is listed as the starter for Saturday. Short went 12-1 with a 2.45 ERA, but that was Division II.

Finally, the familiar name of RHP Andres Galan is listed as the Sunday starter on the mound. Galan had a 4.47 ERA with a too-high 1.45 WHIP last year in 14 outings, 7 starts. Also back in the mix on the mound are guys like Christian Becerra (6.29 ERA with some signs of being better than that) and Tucker Bougie (6.63 ERA) who had started weekend Pac-12 games.

Out of the two guys who did put up good ERA last year, LHP Ian May is now healthy but will be held out until Pac-12 play (and be slowly stretched out). May was nearly perfect with a 0.00 ERA in 16 innings before getting hurt. RHP Tyler Stasiowski posted a 3.58 ERA in 32.2 innings as a reliever junior college transfer. He might be the first one being called upon for saves (if Cal can get there).

The fun part of Cal Baseball games this season will surely be seeing the performances of the two possible day 1 draftees this summer. Rodney Green Jr has that sweet lefty swing. His blazing speed both while patrolling the outfield and causing havoc on the basepath is also notable. Caleb Lomavita opened his Cal career at the top of the lineup since his first game as a freshman and has hit consistently. Lomavita is also athletic behind the plate with a great arm to limit the run game. It is not impossible to imagine either of these guys taking the leap from Golden Spikes Watchlist to Golden Spikes contenders. Both guys played in the famed Cape Cod League over the summer. Rodney Green Jr. also got to play in the USA National College Team.

Cal is picked to finish 8th out of 11 in the Pac-12 this year. Then again, the squad did not click until late in the season when they swept UCLA on the road behind a barrage of homers (that series also is biased in my head for being there in person). The late push gave Cal a Pac-12 tournament berth (only 9 of 11 made it) and a shot to win their way into the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately, Oregon Ducks edged Cal and also stole that Cinderella storyline.

PROJECTED STARTERS

• Friday vs. Kansas State: 5 PM PT on MLB Network

  • RHP Trey Newman (0-0, 0.00) vs. LHP Owen Boerema (0-0, 0.00 ERA)

• Saturday vs. Georgetown: 2 PM PT on MLB.com

  • LHP Luke Short (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. RHP Cody Bowker (0-0, 0.00 ERA)

• Sunday vs. Boston College: 1 PM PT on MLB.com

  • RHP Andres Galan (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. TBD

Baseball is fun but frustrating because it is unpredictable. Judging from the number of impact graduate transfers added for the 2024 season, Mike Neu knows that he could have something special in the likely final year with Lomavita and Green. It might be my Opening Day pipedream but a long postseason run is plausible.

https://twitter.com/CalBaseball/status/1751397567504785475

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Cal Softball (5-1) had an eventful opening weekend at the Louisiana Classic

Although Cal Football did play a bowl game in the state of Louisiana a couple of months ago, Louisiana was certainly not a Bear Territory this past weekend. While the Golden Bears left Louisiana with a 5-1 record including a big road win over Louisiana, who went to a Super Regional last year, two separate but also somewhat related incidents happened in the two games between the Cal Bears and the host No.21 Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns.

Because the racial problems in this country are not yet solved, many people including numerous Cal student-athletes across several sports are still quiet protesting the national anthem by kneeling. This caused some of the Louisiana home fans to loudly yell at the Cal team during that anthem. Things might have subsided during the game, but some of those people felt the need to harass the Cal Softball social media accounts afterward.

https://twitter.com/SFGate/status/1757198393687072947

Grant Marek’s article is worth a read and got the official reaction from Cal Athletics.

Six Cal softball players were verbally harassed by fans at Lamson Park in Lafayette, La., on Friday while kneeling during the national anthem. The altercation occurred before the first of two games over three days the Bears played against the University of Lousiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns that included one six-inning mercy rule final and two ejections.

"Stand up!" fans could be heard yelling repeatedly on the ESPN Plus telecast Friday. "Stand up, California!"

"Liberal wokeness" was shouted multiple times by the same man before a cascade of boos poured down from the stands directed at the athletes. The yelling appeared to only be coming from men — multiple women in the stands, including one in ULL gear sitting right next to the man screaming "liberal wokeness," could be seen waving their hands furiously asking them to stop.

After the yelling started, members of the Cal softball team who weren't kneeling built a wall behind the kneeling players, and a Cal staffer not in uniform and another player joined in on the kneeling. Then, most of the team began holding hands. Once the anthem concluded, the Cal staffer gestured with their arms to the crowd asking for more "boos," before a Cal player wrapped their arm around them and gently guided them toward the dugout.

Cal dropped that first game via run rule 8-0 in 6 innings, but it was a close affair and just a 1-0 game before the bullpen collapsed in the bottom of the 6th. On the field, the major controversy was how the top of the 6th rally was cut short because the umpires used video review to call the 1st base runner out for leaving the base too early in Cal's attempt at a double steal.

The more firework event came in the second game against the same Ragin' Cajuns with the assist of bad weather. Cal lost a 1-0 lead late due to the heavy rain and the umpires' refusal to wait it out. Cal freshman ace Randi Roelling had trouble gripping the ball. After the tying run came home on a second consecutive wild pitch, a Cal assistant coach got automatically ejected for arguing with the umpire. Somehow, Cal catcher and another freshman to know in Lagi Quiroga also got tossed. Jomboy has his usual entertaining breakdown of the whole incident below.

After the chaos, Cal did manage to win that game in the 8th inning. The Golden Bears concluded the weekend with a 5-2 win over McNeese State, 13-6 win over Chattanooga, 0-8 loss at Louisiana, 1-0 win over Chattanooga, 16-3 win over New Mexico, and 3-1 win over Louisiana.

Both Roelling and Quiroga are both nationally top-50 ranked freshmen who are a part of a big and impactful freshman class. While Cal Softball finally made a return trip back to the NCAA tournament last year, they graduated a special player in Makena Smith and a couple of other impact players like Kacey Zobac and Sona Halajian, the latter graduate transferred to Central Florida. This is not quite a complete rebuilding year with the return of the power bat of Tatum Anzaldo. Quiroga also hit two homers to share the team lead with Elon Butler (who hit 10 last year) and Mika Lee (who hit for a high average but no homer. in 2023).

Cal Softball is also in Arizona this weekend for the Grand Canyon Tournament. The Golden Bears will face Cal State Fullerton, host Grand Canyon, No.21 Virginia Tech, Illinois State, and Memphis today through Sunday.