clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Cal Baseball clinch series win over UCLA with a 8-2 victory on Saturday

Bears have now won 6 games in a row (all in the current homestand).

By Ruey Yen
Cal catcher Brett Cumberland is your current Pac-12 homerun leader.
Cal catcher Brett Cumberland is your current Pac-12 homerun leader.
Cal Baseball Facebook

Bears beat UCLA 8-2 to take win their 2nd Pac-12 series. 13th ranked Bears are now 17-6 with a nice 6-2 record in the Pac-12.

For a brief moment, it looked like the Bears may be in trouble. Sophomore righty Jeff Bain had a rough 1st inning although he only gave up 2 runs. Bears quickly answered by stringing together 4 consecutive hits after the first out. Three straight singles plated 1 run. The 4th hit was a homer by LF Brenden Farney. Just like that, the Bears were back up again.

Bain settled down after the first inning and picked up the win after throwing 6 innings. Bears hit two more homers - one by Mitchell "El Gaucho" Kranson, and Farney added another shot.

It's funny that I highlighted Cumberland (see cover photo) for this game and he's the one that did not hit a homer tonight among the guys in the middle of the Bears' order (Kranson, Cumberland, Farney are the 3, 4, and 5 hitters, respectively).

Bears will try to maintain this perfect homestand when they wrap up the 3 game series with UCLA tomorrow at 1 pm.

ROLL ON YOU BEARS!

******

California Golden Bears (16-6, 5-2 in Pac-12) vs. UCLA Bruins (12-11, 4-3 in Pac-12)

Where: Evans Diamond

When: 6 pm PT

Radio: KALX

TV: None (that's unfortunate)

Pitching matchup: Cal RHP Jeff Bain (2-1, 3.50 ERA) vs. UCLA RHP Grant Dyer (1-1, 4.43 ERA)

The homestand continues as the Bears face the Bruins in the middle game of the 3 game series tonight. With Daulton Jefferies scratched this weekend due to lower body stiffness, the Bears have to reshuffle their pitching lineup. Senior Ryan Mason picked up the slack yesterday in a dominating effort. Today, Cal sophomore righty Jeff Bain will attempt to continue the solid pitching. Bain had a rough start last Sunday against Oregon State, but went 3 innings to pick up the mid-week win on Tuesday night's win over USF.

Beside the pitching, the Bears had a solid night hitting on Friday - scoring in 4 of the 8 innings played.

In Dyer, the Bears face a MLB prospect who started the year as the Bruins' ace ("Friday starter"). From the Daily Bruins article on him, Dyer has found a way to increase his velocity so that his fastball sits at 91 to 93 mph. He also apparently has a very good curveball. Dyer was the Bruins' setup guy last year. Judging from his ERA and the fact that he has been demoted to be the Saturday starter, the transition to become a starter hasn't gone as smoothly as planned.

In fact, this has been an uncharacteristically mediocre season thus far for the Bruins. They lost two out of three game in LA to the visiting Texas Longhorns - a team that the Bears swept in a 4 game series down in Austin. Things have kind of unravelled for the Bruins after their surprising Regional loss to Maryland last offseason. Nevertheless, the Bruins are obviously a very talented group.

By the way, renown baseball fan Jared Goff threw out the first pitch at the game last night.

There was no report of how many foul balls were snagged by Goff last night.

GO BEARS!

More From California Golden Blogs