Cal Baseball: Slugfest in Pitt Leads Bears to Sweep Over Panthers
California dismantles Pitt for their first ACC series win & sweep of the 2026 season
After starting the season at 1-11 in conference play, the California Golden Bears didn’t just travel to Pittsburgh to pick up a win, California picked up a series sweep in one of their most dominant displays of offensive and pitching excellence since joining the ACC against a Pitt team that was 22-9 heading into this series and likely expecting an easy matchup against the struggling team out of Berkeley, CA.
California not only swept Pitt, but they also swept them with two games called early due to 10-run mercy rules, as well as posting 16 hits in each game to extend their current winning streak to four games.
Cal’s offense was lights out from top to bottom the entire series. The offense finished the series outscoring the Panthers 39-9 and finished with a BA of .432 with an OPS of 1.250. Cal’s pitching used only seven arms that accounted for just 23 innings of work, and allowed only seven extra-base hits to the Panthers offense while allowing just one lead to Pitt that lasted only half of an inning.
Game 1, Friday 4/10/2026: California 12 – Pittsburgh 1
Starting the weekend with a schedule change, Cal and Pitt began their Friday night game with a first pitch at 3:01 PM EST instead of the intended 6:00 PM EST start due to late-night rain.
Getting the start for the Golden Bears in game one of this series was Junior right-hander Oliver de la Torre, who was coming off a decent game against Georgia Tech where one bad inning was the difference maker in the game, as de la Torre pitched 5.0 innings but allowed seven earned runs on six hits in Cal’s 2-7 loss to the No. 3 Yellow Jackets.
In the Pittsburgh dugout, Grove City College Graduate Transfer Davis Leslie opened up the series for the Panthers. Leslie was named First Team All-Region and First Team All-ACBA Conference for the Division-III Wolverines before coming to Pittsburgh, after posting a 9-2 record with a 2.05 ERA and 84 Ks in his 2025 senior season.
Both pitchers worked into a groove early as de la Torre retired his first six batters while Leslie gave up a base hit in each of the first three innings without allowing a run. The Panthers got on the board first against Oliver in the bottom half of the 3rd as de la Torre hit Pisacreta and Baran in back-to-back at-bats before walking the bases loaded, which allowed Caden Dulin to hit a sac-fly and bring home Pisacreta before de la Torre worked out of the jam with just one run of damage.
The Bears’ bats awoke in the 4th as Jacob French jumped on the first pitch for a double and scored on an RBI-single from Jett Kenady to make it 1-1, with Murillo following with a single up the middle to put two runners on for Lawson Olmstead, who crushed his fourth homer of the season over the right field wall to make it a 4-1 ball game. Carl Schmidt went back-to-back with Olmstead with a solo shot of his own (his fifth of the year), as the Bears batted around and brought French back to the plate, where he brought home two more runs on a 2-RBI single up the middle to score Campbell and Kodama from second and third. That would end Leslie’s afternoon and bring in Daniel McAuliff, who then surrendered a three-run blast to Daniel Murillo (his fifth homerun of the season), which capped off a 10-run inning for the Golden Bears.
California added two more insurance runs in the top half of the 6th as Joshua Hanson led off with a single. At the same time, Hideki Prather reached base on an infield hit – with both runners scoring on an RBI bloop single from Olmstead to make it a 12-1 game heading into the bottom half of the 6th.
De la Torre would allow just three hits and two walks while striking out five Panthers, and remain in the game for the 7th inning, where he would earn the CG, and Cal would shut the door on Pitt with a 10-run mercy rule victory to improve to 2-11 in conference play. Olmstead finished the game with five RBIs, while Jacob French finished with a line of 3-4 with two runs and two RBIs on the day. Game 1: California. WP: Oliver de la Torre (2-4, 7.0 IP CG, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K). LP: David Leslie (2-3, 3.1 IP, 11 H, 9 ER, BB, 5 K).
Game 2, Saturday 4/11/2026: California 14 – Pittsburgh 6
California picked up right where they left off with another offensive slugfest on Saturday afternoon at Charles L. Cost Field, as 14 runs on 16 hits combined with another commanding start from Gavin Eddy helped carry the Golden Bears to their first ACC series win of the season.
Cal’s offense jumped on the board first in the top of the 1st against Pitt’s Vincent Spizzoucco, who spent three seasons at Central Connecticut State University where he was named the 2022 NEC Rookie of the Year, selected to the All-NEC Second Team, and was a Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American – with a sac-fly-RBI from Daniel Murillo before Lawson Olmstead hit his second home run of the series (a two-run shot to right) to make it a quick 3-0 ball game for the Golden Bears. California added one more in the top half of the 3rd with another RBI from Olmstead, as he ripped a double down the left field line to bring home French from first base to make it 4-0.
Eddy was dominant for the Bears as per usual, allowing just three earned runs to the Panthers on six hits, with one of their runs coming at the hands of a wild pitch – but no freebies ever gave Pitt any position to be in the driver’s seat in this game (or series for that matter), as Eddy logged another 5.0 innings and six strikeouts before being swapped for Quinn Larson in the bottom half of the 6th.
The Bears rolled on into the 4th with hot bats in their hands as Cade Campbell led off the inning with a base hit to left, followed by both Kodama and Hanson reaching to load the bases for Prather, who hit a pop fly deep enough to center field that allowed Campbell to score and leave two runners on for Jacob French. French made his return to Berkeley even louder as the Junior 2B launched his third home run of the season over the right field fence to make it an 8-1 game. Pittsburgh then made a change on the mound to bring in Joey Ciancimino, who walked Murillo, Olmstead, and Schmidt to load up the bases with his first three batters before Cade Campbell reached base on a fielding error by Kai Wagner at third to allow two more runs to score and make it 10-1 before Pitt finally got out of the inning.
Cal added three more runs in the top of the 7th on a one-out rally started by an Ethan Kodama walk, which was followed by back-to-back RBI hits from Hanson and Prather before French and Kenady reached base on a hit and HBP. Murillo grounded into a fielder’s choice to plate home the third run of the inning, and Cal looked to head into the final leg of the game with a 10-run lead at 13-3. Pitt was able to claw back for three more runs in the 7th and 8th on a pair of RBI singles from Trey Fenderson and Joey Baran as well as a wild pitch that brought home Lorenzo Carrier, but Cal’s dominance at the plate was far too much for the Panthers to overcome for a second straight afternoon, and California ran away with a 14-6 victory and their first ACC series win of the season. The Bears managed to score 14 runs (with at least 12 in back-to-back days) on 16 hits for the second straight game, with the offense looking like they found a cohesive groove and rhythm in San Francisco that carried over to Pittsburgh, PA. Game 2: California. WP: Gavin Eddy (5-2, 5.0 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K) LP: Vincent Spizzoucco (2-3, 2.2 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, BB, 3 K)
Game 3, Sunday 4/13/2026: California 13 – Pittsburgh 2
California won their first ACC series of the season on Saturday and topped it off with a game three win on Sunday to complete the sweep and earn their first ACC sweep of 2026 – bringing the Golden Bears to two games above .500 for the first time since they left for Winston-Salem back in March.
Ethan Foley earned the Sunday start for the Golden Bears, and for the first time in this series, Pitt jumped on the board first in the bottom of the 1st when Lorenzo Carrier doubled down the left field line to bring Caden Dulin home from second. Cal immediately responded against Pitt’s Drew Lafferty, who started in 13 of the 15 games he appeared in last season, when Hideki Prather hit a two-out two-RBI double to left to give Cal a lead they would never lose in this ball game. Cal came back out in the top half of the 3rd with a leadoff home run from Daniel Murillo (his 6th of the season) to make it 3-1, and Lafferty then put two men on the bases via a HBP to Lawson and a double to Campbell to end his morning and bring in Freddy Beruvides Jr. from the bullpen, who immediately hit Ethan Kodama with the first pitch of his outing before walking Hanson to bring home another run. Then, with the bases loaded, Hideki Prather was “given” the green light to swing away on a 3-0 pitch and launched his 8th home run of the season out of the stadium for a grand slam, making it 8-1 Golden Bears.
Carl Schmidt led off another rally for the Bears in the 4th with a leadoff home run on a 2-0 pitch before Campbell and Kodama both reached base on back-to-back singles, putting two runners on for Joshua Hanson who blasted a 460ft home run to deep center field to make it a 12-1 game before Otto Espinoza would come out of the bullpen for the Bears after Foley’s afternoon was over with 3.0 IP and five Pitt hits under his belt. Espinoza would give up just three hits in his outing for the Bears, lasting 4.0 innings and surrendering just one earned run while striking out four as the Bears cruised to a 13-2 victory in just seven innings for the second time in this series.
California outscored Pitt by a final tally of 39-9, with the pitching staff being just as dominant, as they put up a combined team-ERA of 3.52 with 20 Ks while allowing just nine ER with the Panthers hitting a combined .258 over the weekend. Cal improves to 18-16 overall with a conference record of 4-11 as they pick up their first ACC sweep since last season on The Farm against Stanford.
Game 3: California. Sweep. WP: Otto Espinoza (2-1, 4.0 IP, 3 H, ER, 2 BB, 4 K); LP: Drew Lafferty (4-3, 2.1 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 4 K).
The Golden Bears return to Stu Gordon Stadium, where they will take on San Jose State on Wednesday night before hosting the Louisville Cardinals for a weekend of ACC action on Evans Diamond. All games will be streamed on ACCNX/ESPN+.
Feast or famine for the Bears this season. Utter dominance of Pitt in this series-boy, that was fun. I don’t think I’ve seen a Cal lineup produce sixteen hits three games in a row, ever. Cal’s pitching (esp. starters) remains solid. Satisfying weekend! Let’s see if it bleeds into this week’s games. Sure would be nice to get relevant again in conference, but gotta take it one game at a time.
Knock on wood but it seems to be coming together for both the hitters and the pitchers. Remember, because of NIL a lot of new untested guys and it took quite some time for the intelligent pitching coaches to get thru and even more so for the hitters. Cal’s hitting coach knows what he’s talking about. He came to us from ASU after turning around their hitters to the point thru were crushing the ball the last half of that season. He was a fabulous college player who also spent time in MLB. I watched the Pitt games. Cal’s hitters 1-9 were showing a great approach. Hope it carries into this next weekend. I don’t see any reason why not. Go Bears!!!