Cal Baseball sweeps then-No.5 Oregon State in dramatic fashion, back on NCAA bubble
Golden Bears take their 9-game winning streak down to Stanford this weekend
Cal Baseball (25-14, 11-10 in Pac-12) knew that time was running out for them to make a move toward a postseason push two weekends ago. After suffering consecutive weekend sweeps at Arizona State and at home to Arizona, it seemed like the great start to the season was nothing but a distant memory. However, the team has managed to find its fighting spirit once again, never out of a game despite a deficit, and never down on themselves despite giving up late leads. With the current nine-game winning streak, Cal Baseball has returned to the postseason picture.
In the final month of the regular season, the Cal Bears need to maintain their recent success to return to the NCAA postseason for the first time since 2019. - the last season when the Cal Bears got two first-round MLB Draft candidates. The good/bad news here is that Cal’s opponents are all beatable on paper (especially by the RPI rankings), but the Bears cannot afford many slip-ups to keep their current RPI in the 50s or better.
It was a wild series from Stu Gordon Stadium in Berkeley last weekend. Then No.5 Oregon State Beavers came for their final Pac-12 visit. Cal Bears were coming off a three-game sweep of the Washington State Cougars.
Friday: Cal 10, Oregon State 8
Cal jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Freshman shortstop PJ Moutzouridis hit his 5th homer of the season ahead of RBI hits from Rodney Green Jr. and Max Handron. The constant tinkering of the rotation by Cal head coach Mike Neu meant that LHP Luke Short was now the bulk guy following Austin Turkington as the opener. Although Cal got a three-run homer by Rodeny Green Jr. in the 3rd, Short in his 5 innings of relief gave up three homers to the Beavers. It was a 6-6 game by the middle of the 5th.
Cal Bears fought back to retake the lead with an Advincula sacrifice fly in the 6th and another Max Handron RBI hit in the 7th. The Oregon State Beavers would not just go away. Down to their last out, Beavers’ shortstop Elijah Hainline hit a two-run homer off Cal closer Tyler Stasiowski.
With two outs in the bottom of the 9th and a runner on, Cal right fielder Seth Gwynn came up to bat.
https://twitter.com/CalBaseball/status/1781731116480925827
Yep, Gwynn drove the first pitch he saw out of the park, keeping it just fair, to give the Bears the dramatic game 1 win. This was the Bears’ fourth walk-off win of the season.
Saturday: Cal 8, Oregon State 7
Although Cal scored early with a run in the 1st and 2nd innings, Bears found themselves behind 5-2 in the middle of the 6th. Back from Tommy John surgery and pitching effectively for the Bears again is LHP Ian May, but he is still building up stamina, throwing 52 pitches in two innings. Freshman RHP Oliver Boone gave up five runs in three innings.
By the middle of the 7th, Cal Bears were in a 7-3 deficit, but the Bears will not quit.
Solo homers from Seth Gwynn and Caleb Lomavita in the 7th and 8th innings, respectively, cut the deficit to just two to start the bottom of the 9th.
Single, walk, an error on a fielder’s choice allowing a run scored, a wild pitch, and an intentional walk to Lomavita created a bases-loaded situation and one-run deficit for Rodney Green Jr.
RJ earned the RBI the hard way via a hit-by-pitch. 7-7 game.
A strikeout later, Carson Crawford is up.
https://twitter.com/CalBaseball/status/1781876327085445239
Cal wins with a walk-off walk to cap the three-run rally!
Bears take the series with their 5th walk-off of the season and further improved their RPI by another 10 spots.
Sunday: Cal 4, Oregon State 3
Oregon State’s Dallas Macias had a great game while hitting two homers and driving in all three runs for the Beavers, but the weekend belonged to Cal’s Seth Gwynn. Gwynn hit his third homer of the weekend - one in each game, earning him the Pac-12 Player of the Week honor.
The dingers were nice, yet it was a tie-breaking bases-loaded walk coaxed by Gwynn in the bottom of the 7th that was the difference in the series finale.
Cal Bears faced deficits of 1-0 and 3-2 but those felt like just temporary setbacks after what they had overcome the previous day.
RHP Tom Mayer, a transfer from William and Mary, started this game. Mayer has arguably had the most consistent role in the Cal pitching staff this year, starting games on Sunday. Mayer allowed 1 run in 4 innings while striking out 8. Freshman Trey Newmann, who opened the year as the Friday starter, came in relief and pitched the last five innings of the game.
Newmann, who has had issues in the second or third time through the order, was able to limit the Beavers to just one walk and a hit (a homer that scored two). He was awarded the Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week honor for helping the Bears complete a three-game sweep of the Oregon State Beavers.
Oregon State dropped to 30-9, 10-7 in the Pac-12. Cal kept Beavers’ star 2nd baseman Travis Bazzana, ranked as the No.2 Draft Prospect by MLB Pipeline, to just three hits in 12 ABs with two walks. Bazzana did hit a three-run homer in game 2 but was mostly kept in check.
With the wins, Cal is in the latest Field of 64 projection from D1Baseball. Cal is projected as a 3rd seed in the region of the 5th overall seed (Kentucky). Bears are one of five Pac-12 teams in the project field, joining Oregon State, Arizona, Utah, and Oregon.
Things are rather bunched up atop the Pac-12 Baseball Standings with four more weekends to go (one of those weekends is an out-of-conference for the Bears). Cal will take on Stanford at the Farm this weekend and then USC in Irvine (USC is doing some renovations but I am still perplexed why they are playing so far away) next weekend (I am hoping to get down to Irvine for at least one of those games).
Despite winning records, Stanford has an RPI of 119 and USC has an RPI of 90. They will also be gunning for the Bears to improve their slim postseason chances. After visiting those schools, Cal hosts San Jose State (RPI of 159) and Washington (RPI of 174) with a midweek non-conference home game vs. Stanford in between to close the regular season. Cal Bears cannot gain much but have plenty to lose in these matchups.
Cal also took care of mid-week business by beating Pacific 12-3 in Stockton on Tuesday, hitting two more homers. Cal has a decent 7-5 road record this year and will hope to add to that in these next two weekends.
A relentless offense is the signature of this Cal Baseball team. Led by catcher Caleb Lomavita (0.344/0.412/0.625 with a team-high 12 homers), ranked 14th overall in the recently updated MLB Pipeline draft ranking, Cal is slashing0.292/0.388/0.491 as a team. Rodney Green Jr., ranked 105th on the same list, has gotten hot and raised his home-run total to 11. Green is taking his walks to have a great OBP of 0.410 but is only hitting 0.255 with a team-high strikeout total of 58. Green is just one homer shy of cracking the Cal Baseball career top-10 home run list, joining Caleb Lomavita.
The freshman middle infielders duo of SS PJ Moutzouridis (0.329/0.445/0.510) and 2B Jarren Advincula (0.336/0.413/0.483) have got the job done with their bats and gloves. 1B Peyton Schulze (0.331/0.381/0.522) has a team-high 15 doubles to go with five homers. Seth Gwynn, Max Handron, and Ryan Tayman also have reached that plateau as the Bears have power throughout the lineup.
Pitching remains an issue for the Golden Bears. There is simply very little consistency within the Cal pitching staff, although that problem is found throughout college baseball. Cal’s team ERA of 4.94 is ranked 5th in the Pac-12. No one on the team got a good-looking number other than Ian May (ERA of 1.00) in his limited 9 innings thus far and ace reliever (because he’s used in more high-leverage situations than a traditional closer) Tyler Staasiowski (3.22 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 3 saves). However, many Cal pitchers have had heroic outings where they helped the team win by facing the extra batters, etc.; they just also had outings where things completely blew up because Cal head coach Mike Neu believes in limiting the number of appearances rather than length of outing on his pitchers to keep them healthy.
Cal Bears are never out of a game, but any leads that they have also do not feel safe.
Is this sustainable? Maybe…the college baseball season is not quite the marathon of the MLB season after all.
Cal Bears certainly could keep on playing this way for the next five weeks to make the postseason. You know that they want to beat the Stanford Cardinal this weekend.
Ride that emotional highs from last weekend into this weekend and let’s see how long this winning streak can last!
Big Series: Cal at Stanford
Friday, April 26, 6 p.m.: Pac-12 Bay Area | CalBears.com
Saturday, April 27, 4 p.m..: Pac-12 Bay Area | CalBears.com
Sunday, April 28, 4 p.m.: Pac-12 Bay Area | CalBears.com
ROLL ON YOU BEARS!
Sad news for the suddenly hostile Oregon State fanbase
This team is really surprising me lately.