Cal Loses Its Opener in Pac-12 Baseball Tournament

Cal defense, which has been an issue all season, let the Bears down in a critical moment on Tuesday night, leading to Cal’s 3-2 loss to Oregon in its opening game of the Pac-12 tournament in Scottsdale, Arizona. And because of the tiebreaker system in use in this tournament, the loss eliminated Cal from contention for the Pac-12 title, which, in turn, eliminated the Bears' chance of a berth in the NCAA playoffs.

Cal dropped to 0-1 in its three-team pool, and even if Cal beats top-seeded Stanford in its second game in pool play Wednesday night, the Bears can do no better than finish pool play with a 1-1 record. Because Cal is the lowest seed in the nine-team conference tournament and because seeding is the tiebreaker when determining the three pool winners and the one wild-card team that will advance to the semifinals, the Bears needed to go 2-0 in pool play to advance.

That didn’t happen, although for a long time it appeared the Bears (24-27) might hang on and beat the Ducks (34-20) before eighth-inning breakdowns doomed the Bears.

Cal scored in the top of the first inning when Max Handon hit the first pitch of the game for a triple and scored on Caleb Lomavita’s sacrifice fly. The Bears made it 2-0 in the second inning on Dom Souto’s run-scoring single.

Cal starting pitcher Christian Becerra had to leave the game with shoulder soreness after giving up singles to the first two Oregon batters in the second inning, and Bennett Thompson's sacrifice fly off Cal reliever Andres Galan trimmed the lead to 2-1 later in that frame.

That’s the way it stayed until the eighth as Cal got a double play in the fourth inning to help get out of a first-and-third, nobody-out situation in the fourth inning, and recorded another double play in the fifth to get out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fifth.

However, it unraveled in the eighth. With Logan Mercado pitching for Cal, Sabin Ceballos led off the bottom of the eighth with a single, and the next batter, Tanner Smith, launched a deep fly to right field. Cal right fielder Kade Kretzschmar raced toward right-center and seemed to have a bead on the ball, but when he reached up for the catch, the ball glanced off his glove for a double. It was not an easy play but one a Pac-12 outfielder generally makes.

That put runners at second and third, and Drew Smith followed with a routine groundball to short. But Cal shortstop Carson Crawford misplayed it for an error as the tying run scored and Tanner Smith advanced to third. Jacob Walsh then hit a sacrifice fly off new Cal pitcher Daniel Colwell to put the Ducks ahead 3-2.

Crawford led off the top of the ninth with a single, but Oregon closer Josh Mollerus got Dom Souto to fly out to center and induced a double-play grounder from pinch-hitter Joey Donnelly to end the game.

Cal needed to win the Pac-12 tournament to earn an automatic berth to the NCAA playoffs, since their record was not good enough to earn an at-large bid. So now Cal faces the uncomfortable task of facing archrival Stanford in its final game in Pool A with nothing but pride at stake for the Bears.

In the other two games Tuesday, Arizona defeated Arizona State in Poll B, and USC topped UCLA 6-4 in Pool C.

Cover photo of Max Handron by Marie Goldfarb, UCLA Athletics

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