California Golden Bears

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The California Golden Bears began their nine-game road trip with a beautiful 28-minute drive east through the Caldecott Tunnel on State Route 13 to Moraga, California, where the Saint Mary’s Gaels hosted Cal for a 3:00 PM game on a cold sunny day in the East Bay.

The Gaels were 8-1 at home before Tuesday’s game. Their record of 11-8 shows their struggles on the road, as they are 3-6 while away. However, on February 18th, they defeated No. 21 UC Santa Baraba on the road at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. Cal fell to 9-10 after dropping two of three games against Virginia but has been successful with their weekday out-of-conference games thus far having beaten Bakersfield and Utah on single-game midweek games.

Saint Mary’s pitcher Justin Santiago started for the Gaels making his fifth appearance of the season, and to get the game started Jarren Advincula singled to the right side of the infield to reach base safely for his 15th consecutive game. First Baseman/Catcher Alex Birge was moved up to second in the lineup due to his recent success at the plate but flew out to Tanner Griffith in center field before Cade Campbell would come to the plate and single for his first hit of the ballgame. Tayman and Moutzouridis could not get the two runners home, and Santiago got out of the inning without harm.

Jordan Lopez Making His First Cal Start (via @CalBaseball on X)

Cal Freshman outfielder and relief pitcher Jordan “Jordy” Lopez got the start for the Bears on the mound for the first in his career and he got off to a hot start retiring the Gaels 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 1st. The Bears took that momentum into the top of the 2nd with three consecutive singles by Handron, Gwynn, and French to load the bases with no outs for Carl Schmidt. Schmidt drove a 2-1 offspeed pitch to the opposite field just barely over the wall in right for a grand slam to put Cal ahead early 4-0, for his first of the season. Advincula and Birge would both ground out to Micah Nicholson at second base before Cade Campbell beat out a deep base hit towards third base but got caught stealing second to end the inning.

The Gaels jumped on Lopez’s fastball in the bottom of the 2nd, with Eddie Madrigal, Aiden Taurek, and Diego Castellanos connecting for three consecutive base hits to get Saint Mary’s on the board with one out, as well as Nicholson getting hit by a pitch on a 0-0 count to load the bases for Kashimoto- who would ground out to Advincula at second base via fielder’s choice to end the inning. Cal would gain nothing in the 3rd, but Saint Mary’s would get a run across on a two-out RBI double by Aide Taurek to bring the Gaels within two.

Bears Bring it in After Carl Schmidt’s Grand Slam (via @CalBaseball on X)

Justin Santiago did not return to the mound for the top of the 4th, and the Saint Mary’s reliever Adam Enyart came into the game but struggled with command instantly. Seth Gwynn led off with a walk before Jacob French flied out to right, but then Carl Schmidt walked and Advincula singled to the right side of the outfield to bring Gwynn home and bring the Bears back up by three. Advincula then stole second base while Alex Birge walked to load the bases for Cade Campbell- who drilled his third hit of the game and brought in two runners to bring California up 7-2. Moutzouridis would bring Birge home on a base hit of his own to make it 8-2 before Enyart would get out of the inning with the Bears scoring four runs on three hits and four walks.

A leadoff single for Ta Griffith would end Lopez’s afternoon and bring Cole Tremain in to pitch for Cal with no outs and a runner on first. Griffith stole second on a 1-1 pitch but back-to-back groundouts by Williams and Nicholson and a Kashimoto pop-fly to center would end the inning and leave the Gaels with another runner in scoring position. Tremain retired all three batters he faced in the bottom of the 5th inning but would be pulled in the middle of the 6th after allowing two runners on via an Advincula error and back-to-back Williams and Nicholson base hits that brought the fourth Saint Mary’s run of the game home, which Kashimoto followed with an RBI single to right to end his evening. Spencer Dessart would record the final out of the 6th to get the Bears out of the 6th holding onto an 8-5 lead. The Gaels continued to crawl back in the 7th, as Ryan Pierce got it started for Saint Mary’s with a leadoff single to center, followed by a double to left by Ed Madrigal to put runners in scoring position for Taurek. A Sac-Fly by Taurek brought the game within two, and a Diego Castellanos single passed the reaching Moutzouridis and Campbell, bringing the Gaels back within one run in Moraga.

Cal’s bats this season have had droughts in “insurance” innings where they can help themselves out as they continue to dive deeper into bullpen games during midweek out-of-conference battles, but everything seemed to come back into shape in the top of the 8th inning, as Noa Waldeck came in to pitch for Saint Mary’s, where Campbell led off with his fifth base hit of the evening (he had his fourth in the top of the 5th but Advincula interfered with the fielder at SS), followed by a Tayman walk and Moutzouridis RBI-single to bring in Campbell. Handron flew out to center field before Gwynn was hit by the first pitch he saw in his at-bat, which brought Garre Plata in to pitch for Waldeck with only one out recorded. Plata got French to hit a sac-fly to the left fielder to score Tayman, and Schmidt doubled in Gwynn and Moutzouridis to clear the bases and put the Bears up 12-7.

Cade Campbell Connects for his Third Hit of the Game (via @CalBaseball on X)

Logan Piper made his seventh relief appearance for the Golden Bears on Tuesday evening, coming in for the bottom half of the 8th inning to face the nine, one, and two batters in the lineup for Saint Mary’s. Piper retired the side in order on just nine pitches. The Bears would add one more run in the top of the 9th on a Moutzouridis RBI single to left field before Piper would shut the door on Saint Mary’s with a game-ending double play to win 13-7 and start the nine-game road trip off with a victory.

Cole Tremain is credited with his second victory of the season and finished with 2.2 innings pitched and zero earned runs, while Logan Piper improved his ERA on the season to 2.63.

The California Golden Bears improve to 10-10 on the season and will take on the ACC’s No. 14 Stanford Cardinal at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond for their historic ACC rivalry series on Friday, March 21st (6:00 PM), Saturday, March 22nd (2:00 PM), and Sunday, March 23rd (1:00 PM). Games will be streamed on ESPN+ through the ACC Network Subscription.