Cal Baseball hits walk-off home run

Bears defeat San Francisco 4-3, move to 3-3 on the year

The Bears’ hitting was repeatedly unfazed by blown leads, flipping a switch when they truly needed to. After reliever Aaron Roberts blew the save in the top of the 9th, Cole Elvis crushed a walk-off home run to give the Bears a 4-3 victory over the Dons of San Francisco.

(pc: Owen Kaminski)

After Dylan Beavers’ first-inning RBI single put runners on the corners with one out, the Bears took a lead and seemed to be on cruise control to victory. But starting Dons pitcher Landen Bourassa slipped out of the jam with some timely changeups, denying the Bears an early chance to dominate the scoreboard. 

While the Bears chipped away at Bourassa enough to pick up two runs, reliever Sam Stoutenborough carried the Bears for 5.2 innings. Stoutenborough’s fastball and splitter were nearly unhittable as he racked up seven strikeouts, all swinging. 

Relieving Stoutenborough, Roberts started off the 9th with two quick outs and had Jacob Munoz down to his last strike. Roberts, however, tensed up enough to put Munoz on first, and Brian McClellin committed his fifth error of the season on the next at-bat. The Bears’ impressive pitching performance was finally lost to history as Ryan Davis found the gap in left-center for a two-run double to tie up the game. 

With the narrative gone, Cole Elvis wrote a new one on a 3-1 count. Elvis’ last home run had come 661 days ago against, maybe coincidentally, San Francisco. This ball, however, had “no doubt” written on it the moment it left Elvis’ bat.

(pc: Owen Kaminski)

The Bears were jubilant in the first moment but quickly jogged out to right field, ready to listen to Mike Neu’s post-game speech as they prepare to travel across the bay for the next two games of the series.