Meep meep.
On March 4 at Evans Diamond at Stu Gordon Stadium in Berkeley, Cal (9-3) put on a dominant display against the CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (5-8), winning 15-6 in the one-game series.
The Bears’ brawl began shortly after first pitch, with the Cal offense jumping out to an early 4-0 lead. This was courtesy of two two-run long balls by graduate student infielder Daniel Murillo in the first, and redshirt freshman infield/outfielder Joshua Hanson in the second. Junior utility player Jacob French followed that up with a hard effort play to beat out the tag at first base, scoring junior catcher Hideki Prather to extend the lead to five.
The Roadrunners zipped back with a quick two-out run in the top of the third inning, with outfielder Elgin Bennett scoring first baseman Evan Cloyd on a double to put Bakersfield on the board.
The Bears, already well out of hibernation, let everyone know about it in the bottom of the third inning, scoring six runs on four hits to extend the lead to ten and put the game in run rule territory. The Cal offense sent 11 batters to the plate in the frame, highlighted by three walks, a stolen base by redshirt sophomore outfielder Ethan Kodama and a double by Murillo.
“We scored in the first six innings of the game, and that was huge,” said Cal head coach Mike Neu. “I thought our guys did a really good job getting big hits with runners in scoring position.”
The Bears proceeded to tack on two more insurance runs over the next two innings.
The Roadrunners finally found their footing in the top of the sixth inning when, with two outs, they drove in five runs on their three hits. Two early walks and a hit batter by Cal freshman pitcher Tanner Grove helped the Roadrunners add pressure on the base paths.
Cal demonstrated its toughness by scoring two in the bottom half of the inning. After Kodoma’s effort in stretching a hard hit ball up the middle into a double and with two more singles from Prather and French, the blue and gold were within one run of ending the game via run rule.
Both teams failed to score again the remainder of the game, with freshman pitcher Duncan Russell closing out the top of the ninth only allowing one hit and striking out one for the Bears.
CSU Bakersfield used 11 pitchers across the eight innings, with Cal forcing the Roadrunners to utilize three before the end of the second inning.
This was more of a reflection on the Bears’ bats, as French and Murillo combined for nine of the 21 hits and drove in eight of the 15 runs. Both teams left a similar amount of runners on base, with Cal stranding 10 Roadrunners and Bakersfield preventing 11 Bears from crossing home.
The biggest difference in the game could be attributed to Cal’s offensive efficiency, as it was superior in every notable batting statistic — hitting over .420 with runners on, runners in scoring position and with two outs overall. Additionally, the Roadrunners’ two fielding errors led directly to runs for the Bears in the second and third innings.
It’s easy to focus on Cal’s offense when a number that large gets put up on the board, but freshman pitcher Trent Roach was a big part of the team’s success. Roach made his third appearance of his collegiate career and secured his first win off the back of a very efficient night — allowing one run on three hits, punching out four and only walking two on 57 pitches across four innings — leaving Cal with an 11-run lead.
“It’s definitely comforting on the mound to have that cushion, but it doesn’t change the way I pitch at all. No matter what you still gotta attack, get ahead of the count early, get balls in play,” said Roach. “Going into ACC play, I think confidence is definitely a key … you’re just going to have to trust in yourself.”
As the Bears look to the four-game weekend series against University of San Diego (7-4), it’ll be crucial for them to take the momentum into a big series before going into ACC play next weekend.
“Nothing really changes for us. It’s great to win the games, but we just want to get better every day,” said Neu. “We just want to respect how difficult this game is and continue to work, and if we do that, we know the results have a chance to be pretty good.”