Cal Baseball: Pandemic Forced Bears to Alter Ambitious 2021 Schedule

Series against No. 1-ranked Florida had to be scratched; Cal season opens Friday

Cal baseball coach Mike Neu spend years putting together a 2021 schedule designed to maximize the Bears’ RPI, a major metric used in the selection of teams for the NCAA tournament.

Then the pandemic arrived.

A road series against No. 1-ranked Florida to open the season no long made sense. Neither did a Big Ten-Pac-12 tournament at Minnesota.

Instead Neu and the Bears had to go local, to minimize travel and the possibility of COVID-19 transmission.

“We’ve essentially changed every single game in our nonconference schedule,” Neu said this week as Cal prepares to open its season on Friday. “Now we’re playing more local. We commute the first three weeks. Then we play at home the next two weeks.”

Neu sees a bright side.

“There are some challenges with that [new schedule],” he said, “but I also believe that we have – at least our roster – it can play to our strength a little, with having a little more pitching depth.”

With more four-game series, the Bears’ pitching depth should be a bigger factor. And the Bears will play more home games than originally scheduled.

However, playing fewer games against national powers will probably affect the Bears’ RPI ranking adversely.

“I don’t know how this is going to affect us with RPI,” Neu said. “That’s probably the unknown, because we basically built our [original] schedule to finish in the top 30 in the RPI.”

Neu spent the past two years putting together a schedule that included games against Florida, Connecticut, Nebraska-Omaha and three Big Ten teams.

“And now that’s all out the window,” he said.

Cal is not the only team affected, of course. A lot of teams are changing their nonconference schedules because of the current COVID-19 situation.

So now the Bears will worry less about the RPI and just try to win as many games as possible, hoping that can get them into the postseason.

And teams should be well-stocked. Because of the 2020 Major League Baseball draft had just five rounds instead of the customary 40, a lot players who would have turned pro are back in college.

That allowed Cal to retain two of its best players – third baseman Quentin Selma and second baseman Darren Baker. Both presumably would have been taken in the middle rounds of a 40-round draft, and probably would have turned pro after their junior seasons in 2020.

Plus last year’s baseball season did not count against players’ eligibility, allowing 2020 seniors to return in 2021.

They won’t get to face the No. 1-ranked Gators, though.

Instead Cal will begin the season with a four-game series against Pacific, with the first two games being played in Berkeley on Friday and Saturday and the next two games to be played at Pacific’s home field in Stockton on Sunday and Monday.

Cal will then do the same thing the following two weeks against San Francisco and Saint Mary’s, with two games in each of those four-game series being played in Berkeley and two on the opponent’s home field.

A four-game series against Loyola Marymount and a three-game set against California Baptist lead up the Bears’ Pac-12 opener against Utah on March 26.

See the entire schedule here.

Cal was picked to finish ninth in the 12-team Pac-12 in the preseason coaches poll.

Neu talks here about initial fears that there might not be a 2021 baseball season at all.

Neu discusses how preparation this season has been different from past seasons.

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Cover photo of Quentin Selma (left) and Darren Baker by Robert Edwards/KLC Fotos

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Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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