Cal Baseball Looks to Get Back on Track vs. Louisville

Cal resumes a sometimes strange season on Friday when the Bears host a three-game ACC series against Louisville at Stu Gordon Stadium.

Strange?

At the halfway point of the ACC schedule, let’s review how the Bears’ season has unfolded:

— They were 13-3 out of the starting gate, including an 11-game win streak, which tied for the second-longest in program history. That streak came to an end with a 3-2 loss to San Jose State.

— The defeat to SJSU triggered a 10-game losing skid, eight of those opening the ACC schedule. They halted that drought with a 5-3 win at Wake Forest on March 29, then lost three in a row, leaving them at 1-11 in conference play.

— The Bears muscled up to win four in a row last week, including a road sweep against a very solid Pitt team, which entered the series with a 22-9 record, including 6-6 in the ACC.

So the Bears had some momentum arriving at this week. Then they played another non-conference game Wednesday night against San Jose State, which once more snapped a Cal win streak with a 10-7 verdict in Berkeley.

The good news for Cal (18-17, 4-11 ACC) is it already has played the three toughest teams in the conference. The Bears are 0-9 against No. 2 Georgia Tech, No. 3 North Carolina and No. 24 Boston College.

The bad news is they still haven’t won a conference home game. Louisville (21-16, 6-9) is 3-6 on the road and has lost its past three series, so the Bears will try to continue those trends.

But the Cardinals feature one of the ACC’s top sluggers in sophomore Tague Davis, who leads the conference with 19 home runs and 67 RBIs on the heels of clubbing 18 homers a year ago.

The challenge for Cal is to maintain the offensive rhythm it has displayed the past two weeks. Including the loss to San Jose, the Bears are scoring 10.8 run over the past five games.

Before their sweep of Pitt, the Bears batted just .222 in their 12 ACC games and was held to three runs or fewer nine times.

But at Pitt, Cal hitters combined to deliver at a .432 clip while producing 39 runs in three games. That’s five more than they scored in their first 12 ACC outings.

Leading the way were the top three hitters in the Cal lineup:

— Junior catcher and leadoff hitter Hideki Prather was 5 for 11 with a homer and eight RBIs in the three games vs. Pitt. Prather is hitting .361 for the season and leads the Bears with 22 extra-base hits, including eight home runs.

— No. 2 hitter, junior second baseman Jacob French, went 7 for 13 with a homer and five RBIs. French leads the Bears with a .377 season batting average.

— Freshman shortstop Jeff Kenady, hitting in the No. 3 hole, was 5 for 14 against the Panthers. Kenady is hitting .336 for the year.

Those three combined to bat .447 (17 for 38) in the series and had a .523 on-base percentage, including three walks and three times hit by pitches.

This is the halfway point of the conference schedule. After this homestand, the Bears have ACC series at Miami (27-9, 8-7), vs. Virginia Tech (17-18), at Virginia (26-12, 10-8) and vs. Stanford (16-16, 6-9).

All 16 conference schools that field baseball teams will participate in the ACC Championship tournament, May 19-24 at Charlotte, NC.

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