Cal Baseball starts Pac-12 Tournament play on Tuesday night

Golden Bears need to go 4-0 to earn the conference automatic bid

While Cal Baseball (24-26, 12-18 in Pac-12) probably have enough power to slug their way to a 4-game winning streak, the bigger question is if the Golden Bears got enough pitching. Then again, Cal Bears know that they have to win the automatic bid to make the NCAA Tournament. They have much more to gain than most of the other teams in the Pac-12 Tournament.

It came down to the final game of the regular season, but Cal managed to book their spot in Scottsdale, Arizona this week with a come-from-behind 16-11 win on Saturday at No.24 Washington.

Trailing 4-2 after 5 innings, Cal scored 13 runs in the next two innings. A day after hitting 5 homers, they hit 6 home runs in this one with long balls from Rodney Green Jr, Carson Crawford, Nathan Manning, Jack Johnston, and two from Caleb Lomavita. The sophomore catcher Lomavita earned the Pac-12 Player of the Week honor for hitting four crucial homers in the two Cal wins over Washington.

https://twitter.com/CalBaseball/status/1660767493995257856?cxt=HHwWgIDT4ZLPnYwuAAAA

Here is the Pac-12 Conference highlight reel:

https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1660737297569173504?cxt=HHwWgMDS7b3xj4wuAAAA

Cal Baseball only needs to look at either the NBA or NHL playoffs right now to see examples of hot teams that went from barely making the playoffs to the brink of the championship series in the Miami Heat and the Florida Panthers, respectively. Just qualifying for the Pac-12 Baseball Tournament meant that they got a chance to prolong their season.

Year 2 of the still quite new Pac-12 Baseball Tournament saw a new format. Nine of the 11 Pac-12 teams have made their way to Scottsdale, AZ and are placed in three groups of three.

9th-seed Cal is in the same group as 6th-seed Oregon (33-20, 16-14 in Pac-12) and top-seed Stanford (37-14, 23-7 in Pac-12). Stanford helped Cal this final weekend by sweeping Washington State to drop them to 10th place in the conference. The Cardinal has also already been announced as one of 16 regional hosts and will be the 9th-seed in the country regardless of what will happen this week. Cal will play Oregon on Tuesday and then Stanford on Wednesday.

The winner of the three groups and the top wild-card team (which will likely use seeding as a tie-breaker) will advance to the Pac-12 Tournament semifinal. Every team is guaranteed two games while the eventual winner will need to play four games. The Pac-12 Tournament semifinals and final will be played on Friday and Saturday.

Oregon State, Arizona State, and Arizona are in Pool B. Washington, USC, and UCLA are in pool C.

The 11 home runs hit by the Bears in the Washington series gives them 84 for the year, two shy of the program record set in 1999. Cal has hit 30 home runs in the month of May, especially on the road at UCLA and at Washington. Bears' bats could take advantage of the Arizona dry heat to easily set a new record.

The trio of Caleb Lomavita (15), Rodney Green Jr. (14), and Kade Kretzschmar (13) has hit 42 combined home runs; with two more dingers they will be the most prolific home run trio in the Mike Neu era, surpassing Andrew Vaughn (23), Jonah Davis (14), and Sam Wezniak (6), who hit 43 combined home runs in 2018. Since being installed atop the order, Max Handron has really found his power stroke with the bulk of his 9 homers coming in May.

Announced on Tuesday morning, outfielders Rodney Green Jr. and Kade Kretzschmar were named to the All-Conference Team while sophomore catcher Caleb Lomavita and junior pitcher Paulshawn Pasqualotto earned honorable mention. Pasqualotto was also named to the conference's All-Defensive Team.

The lack of pitching depth was an issue for Cal even before they lost ace Ian May. Since May went down before the Pac-12 season had started, head coach Mike Neu had to stretch everyone out to be able to cover multiple innings. Neu also often shows too much patience in trying to get his guys to get an extra out here or there instead of playing matchups.

Christian Becerra (2-5, 6.24 ERA), reliever turned starter, will get the ball to start the game on Tuesday. The most reliable reliever, Tyler Stasiowski will likely be used next with the hope that both guys can possibly also pitch in a potential 4th game. In the last 10 games, Stasiowski has made four appearances with a 1.64 ERA.

A flip in the pitching lineup this past weekend meant that game 2 vs. Stanford will likely be another game with two relievers (LHP Chris Stamos and then Connor Sullivan) going in tandem. The only true starter for Cal, Paulshawn Pasqualotto, might be saved for the semifinal after pitching 5 innings on Saturday. Andres Galan, Austin Turkington, Tucker Bougie, and Robert Aivazian are all righties who can go an inning or two. LHP Daniel Colwell, a graduate transfer from UCLA, is often the lone lefty available in the pen. All of the Cal pitchers have had moments of brilliance but also all have got hit hard at times (sometimes both in the same game, unfortunately). As a team, the Cal staff got an ERA of 5.59. They have been somewhat bailed out by a Cal offense that scores 6.42 runs per game.

Photo Credit: Rob Edwards/klcfotos (CalBears.com)

• Cal vs. Oregon: Tuesday, May 23, 7:05 p.m.:  Pac-12 Network | Live Stats

• Cal vs. Stanford: Wednesday, May 24, 7:05 p.m.:  Pac-12 Network | Live Stats

Against Oregon, Cal won one of three in Berkeley this year.

Against Stanford, Cal is 1-4 this year but it could have easily been 4-1 if not for two blown leads down to the last out or a GIDP with the bases loaded to lose by 1.

Beating the Ducks and the Cardinal will not be easy, but it is also not improbable. Cal needs these games more than Oregon and Stanford. The strong desire to win can sometimes make that small difference (or have the opposite effect).

Regardless, Cal Baseball is still playing this week. They did not know that would be the case, this time last week.

ROLL ON YOU BEARS!