Cal Faces Do-or-Die Baseball Series with Utah
It’s simple. If Cal wins two of the three games in this weekend’s series with Utah in Berkeley, the Golden Bears will qualify for the Pac-12 tournament and their season will continue. If Cal loses two of the three games against the Utes, Utah will advance to the Pac-12 tournament and the Golden Bears’ season will be over.
“We know what’s at stake,” Cal first baseman Nathan Martorella said in the video atop this story. “It’s either win two games, we could even sweep, or if we don’t end up winning this series, we know our season is cut short. So big stakes this weekend, but we know we’re able to handle it and we’re capable of it.”
The games against Utah will be played Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday afternoon. And any chance for Cal to get into the 64-team NCAA tournament depends on the Bears getting into the Pac-12 tournament and winning it. Every site that offered a projection of the 64-team NCAA field this week has only five Pac-12 teams in the field – Oregon State, Stanford, Oregon, UCLA and Arizona. So the Bears need the automatic berth that goes to the Pac-12 tournament champ to get into the NCAA playoffs.
“The goal right now is getting into the Pac-12 tournament,” Martorella said. “But it is a cool thing to know, [if] you work your way into the Pac-12 tournament, you have a way into a regional.”
Here’s the situation: Cal is 25-25 overall and 11-16 in the Pac-12, putting the Bears in eighth place. Utah is 26-24-1 overall and 10-17 in the conference, putting the Utes in ninth place, one game behind Cal. Only the top eight teams qualify for the Pac-12 tournament, to be held in Scottsdale, Ariz. Add to that the caveat that the tiebreaker if teams finish tied for eighth place is head-to-head results, and you can see why the winner of the Utah-Cal series will qualify for the Pac-12 tournament and the loser is done. (If Utah wins two of the three games, Cal and Utah would finish tied for eighth, but the Utes would then have the advantage in head-to-head results.) If Cal sweeps, the Bears could conceivably finish tied for seventh and get the No. 7 seed in the Pac-12 tournament, but that’s not worth thinking about.
Cal's starting pitcher on Thursday will be right-hander Joseph King, who is 4-3 with a 3.94 ERA. He pitched just one inning in last week's series against New Mexico and did not give up any runs or hits. In his previous start, against Stanford, King allowed four runs (three earned) while giving up two hits and five walks in five innings.
On Friday, Cal's scheduled starter is Steven Zobac, who is 3-3 with 4.41 ERA. He pitched seven innings of shutout ball against New Mexico last Friday.
Cal manager Mike Neu will wait until he sees how the first two games go before naming a starter for Saturday's game.
Utah has not named its starters for the weekend, but Cam Day (1-6, 6.86 ERA) and Matthew Sox (4-4, 5.33 ERA) are likely to be two of the Utes' starters.
Three things are in Cal’s favor: One, the series is on Cal’s home field. Two, Cal is coming off a dominating three-game nonconference sweep of New Mexico, outscoring the Lobos 42-5, while the Utes had lost nine straight games before beating BYU in a nonconference game on Tuesday. Three, Cal has three players playing at a high level: Dylan Beavers, who leads the Pac-12 in homers with 17; Dom Souto (.356 average), who has aided the Bears' offense since being put into the starting lineup midway through the season; and Martorella, who may be the hottest hitter in the Pac-12.
Martorella, who is hitting .335 with 10 homers for the season, is riding a 15-game hitting streak, and he hit .397 with six homers and 18 RBIs over those 15 games.
“Honestly, I’ve kept it simple,” he said. “I’ve always known what I was capable of, but I just wanted to keep it simple, keep trusting the process that I have created for myself, and good things have been happening.”
Martorella is a junior, which means he is eligible to enter the June major-league draft. He was drafted out of high school by the Boston Red Sox in 2019, but opted to attend Cal. Now he has the option of entering the draft again, something that did not seem likely after he hit just .237 with five homers last year.
The majors is not on Martorella’s mind right now, though. Getting to the Pac-12 tournament is the immediate goal.
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Cover photo of Nathan Martorella by Ashley Herman
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Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53
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