College baseball teams have to sort of prioritize the weekend games, due to only having so much pitching depth, but otherwise no longer "not really try" in mid-week games by not playing to win at every other position in difference to getting playing time for reserves, unless there is a legit search for who should play regularly. The reality is because they often are the differentiating factor in separating a couple of comparable conference finishing teams, they are in some cases even more important than conference games come selection and seeding time, and impact conference relative standing (think Net and RPI impacts in hoops). The non-conference games between conference teams the Pac plays complicate things, because its a conference win and loss no matter what happens.
All that said, any win against any ranked opponent is a very good win (for Cal in this case), and any loss by a ranked, especially a top 5-10, team to an unranked opponent, especially at home, is not trivial (for Stanford in this case). Reading very much into the result of any one baseball game at any level is foolhardy, but this could prove to be an important win for Cal if the Bears take care of business more often than not over the next 3 months.
Yup the season hinges on that sophomore class and whether Neu can work some bullpen magic
College baseball teams have to sort of prioritize the weekend games, due to only having so much pitching depth, but otherwise no longer "not really try" in mid-week games by not playing to win at every other position in difference to getting playing time for reserves, unless there is a legit search for who should play regularly. The reality is because they often are the differentiating factor in separating a couple of comparable conference finishing teams, they are in some cases even more important than conference games come selection and seeding time, and impact conference relative standing (think Net and RPI impacts in hoops). The non-conference games between conference teams the Pac plays complicate things, because its a conference win and loss no matter what happens.
All that said, any win against any ranked opponent is a very good win (for Cal in this case), and any loss by a ranked, especially a top 5-10, team to an unranked opponent, especially at home, is not trivial (for Stanford in this case). Reading very much into the result of any one baseball game at any level is foolhardy, but this could prove to be an important win for Cal if the Bears take care of business more often than not over the next 3 months.