Cal Baseball: San Jose Spoils Bears’ Winning Streak for the Second Time This Season
California falls to San Jose State 10-7 as SJSU sweeps the Bears on the season
Coming off their first sweep in ACC play of the season, the California Golden Bears returned home for a midweek out-of-conference matchup against the South Bay’s San Jose State Spartans (14-21) at Evans Diamond at Stu Gordon Stadium. The Golden Bears also entered Wednesday night with a four-game winning streak after snagging a midweek win in San Francisco last Monday before departing for Pitt, while the Spartans made the drive up to the East Bay after going 2-6 in their last eight games.
Meeting for the second time this season, California’s 2026 OOC schedule was made up entirely of California-based universities/colleges, The last time the two Bay Area division I public universities squared off, the Spartans put a stop to Cal’s 11-game winning streak with a two-out bases loaded walk-off single to win 3-2 and kickstart California’s descent into midseason mediocrity, as UNC, Boston College, UCONN, and Wake Forest would all go on to beat up on the Bears.
With a change of pace to the midweek rotation that we usually would see of Trent Roach or Otto Espinoza, who has seen a prevalent elevation to the weekend staff, Mike Neu is continuing to use the OOC games as a means to test out the freshmen arsenal in Cal’s pitching staff – this time handing the ball to the 6’7” right-hander out of Dallas, TX, Jett Wright. Wright entered the game with eight prior appearances for the Golden Bears, having last pitched 2.0 shutout innings of relief in SF against the Dons. Wright’s game against SJSU on Tuesday night was his first career collegiate start.
San Jose’s Luka Pintar got the start for the Spartans in what would be his ninth appearance on the season and fifth start overall. Last year, the San Jose-native spent his freshman season down in San Diego with the Aztecs, where he appeared in 14 games and started in one while striking out 15 batters in 23 IP. In his sophomore year with his hometown university, Pintar has dialed in his control and already struck out 22 batters compared to the 12 walks he has allowed, but his ERA sat at 6.68 entering Tuesday night with 33.2 IP under his belt.
Kicking off with a first pitch at 6:00 PM, the Spartans and Bears were quiet at the plate as far as runs go, until San Jose set themselves to score against Wright in the 3rd after getting two runners in scoring position on a pair of walks and a wild pitch. After getting the first out recorded of the inning, Neu went to the bullpen and brought in Spalliero, who surrendered a two-RBI double to JC Osorio-Agard before getting Rohne Klein to ground out on a 1-3 putout that allowed one more run to score before Cal got out of the inning down 0-3.
Cal was able to claw back for two runs in the bottom half of the 4th as Jacob French stayed hot at the plate and led the inning off with a base hit through the right side, and Daniel Murillo crushed a 3-2 fastball to deep left field for his seventh home run of the season to bring the Bears within one. The Spartans did not let that one run lead stand for too long, as they added those two runs right back in the 5th on a one-out solo shot from Jake McCoy and an RBI double to right from Rocci Caballero to make it 5-2, BUT Cal snatched those two runs right back in the bottom half of the inning on back-to-back sacrifice flies to the corner outfielders to make it a 5-4 ball game and send Luke Pintar out of the game.
SJSU then began to establish its too-big-to-fight lead in this game in the 6th, as Rowles led off the inning with a double down the right field line on the first pitch of the at-bat, and McCoy traded places with him on an RBI-double of his own. Cal’s Jett Kenady then made a throwing error later in the inning that would allow McCoy to score from second, as Murillo gunned down Neil Jansen, who was trying to extend to second from first on the bad throw from the freshman shortstop. The Spartans added one more run on another longball, this time from Rocco Caballero in the top of the 7th off of Cole Clark to take an 8-4 lead, but as Cal had been trying all game, the Bears clawed back for two more runs in the bottom half of the inning with a lead off HBP on a 3-2 count to Kalen Applefield who scored on a double from Hideki Prather, who then scored on a double by French to bring the Bears back within just two runs against the Spartans.
But sadly, that was just not enough for the Golden Bears in this midweek matchup that could have expanded their winning streak to five games. San Jose State added an extra insurance run in the top of the 9th on another extra base hit RBI, this time from Alex Fernandes, to make it a 10-6 lead, and Cal could only put up one run on the lone effort from a Jacob French solo shot home run to end up coming up short and losing 7-10.
San Jose State takes both ACC-travel-friendly matchups that Cal had planned for their OCC schedule, and California sits at 18-17 as they look to the weekend, as they will face off against 21-16 Louisville in Berkeley for an ACC series. Louisville sits at 6-9 in conference play while the Golden Bears have struggled their way to 4-11.
All games will be streamed on ACCNX/ESPN+, with Friday’s game starting at 6:05 PM, Saturday at 2:05 PM, and Sunday at 1:05 PM.