Cal Wins Thriller, Evens Series With Stanford
BERKELEY— Playing in front of a packed Stu Gordon Stadium crowd, the California baseball team earned a thrilling 4-3 win over rival Stanford on Friday to even the series and force a Senior Day rubber match.
Clutch hitting and yet another impressive outing by the bullpen lifted the Golden Bears (28-25, 11-18 ACC) over the Cardinal (27-24, 13-16 ACC) in a game that featured two ties and three lead changes to keep the crowd of just under 1,500 on its toes until the final strike.
After going quietly the first time through the order, the Bears got on the board the second time around with catcher Hideki Prather missing a home run by foot to collect a one-out triple, his first of the season. The always-clutch first baseman Daniel Murillo drove him in on a two-out RBI to put Cal up 1-0.
Prather made it a 2-0 ball game in the bottom of the fifth hitting his team-leading 13th home run of the season down the left field line.
Junior Oliver de la Torre earned his 14th Friday start of the season and was dominant early on breezing through his first six innings of work with no runs allowed but gave up the lead with a three-spot in the seventh inning, which would be his last. He finished with six strikeouts and allowed six hits and two walks in his fifth quality start of the season.
Luckily for de la Torre, his shortstop Jett Kenady was right there to pick him up, crushing a game-tying home run in the bottom half of the inning. The freshman’s 11th home run of the season and third in the last five games carried 400 feet and had an exit velocity of 104 mph.
Freshman Trent Roach (2-1) entered with one out and one on in the top of the eighth and got his team out of the jam with back-to-back strikeouts to end the inning. He would be credited with the win in his 1.0 scoreless inning of work, which now gives him three straight appearances and five full innings without an earned run.
Cal regained the lead in the bottom of the eighth capitalizing on a Cardinal error that allowed pinch-runner Jackson Norum to reach third and drove him in on a sac-fly by centerfielder Ethan Kodama.
After allowing the leadoff hitter to reach in the ninth Roach cashed in a sac bunt for the first out in the ninth but the Cardinal had moved the tying run into scoring position at second base. In came the Swiss Army knife known as Ethan Foley who has done everything from start to close this year. After walking the first batter he saw on four pitches to put the potential go-ahead run aboard, the senior got a loud out that was caught deep in left center.
As the final batter of the night stepped to the plate the entirety of Stu Gordon Stadium rose to its feet and began to roar as after falling behind 3-1, Foley made the count full with a called strike. Two straight foul balls sent groans across the crowd before Foley got the final swing and miss to end the game and earn his third save of the season.
The rubber match and regular-season finale is set for tomorrow at 3:05 p.m. PT with the pregame Senior Day ceremony slated for 2:30 p.m. PT.
