March 21, 2009

Box Score

BERKELEY, CALIF. - The University of California baseball team - behind home runs from Brett Jackson and Dylan Tonneson, and stellar relief pitching from Michael Bugary and Blake Smith - defeated Bay Area rival Stanford, 7-6, Saturday in the Pac-10 opener at Evans Diamond. The Golden Bears improved their record to 11-7 (1-0), while the Cardinal dropped to 3-9 (0-1). Cal also got strong hitting efforts from sophomore shortstop Brian Guinn (2-for-4, two RBI) and senior third baseman Michael Brady (2-for-3, two doubles, RBI).

The winning pitcher for Cal was junior left-hander Bugary, who entered the game in the seventh inning and pitched 2.0 innings with one hit, no runs, no walks and three strikeouts to improve his record to 2-0 with a save and a 0.90 ERA (29 strikeouts in 20.0 innings). Smith earned his first save of the season, pitching the top of the ninth inning (one hit, one run, one walk, one strikeout) and striking out Stanford's Jonathan Kaskow with the tying run on second base.

The Bears jumped out to a 5-0 lead off of Cardinal starter Jeffrey Inman (0-3, 3.0 innings, five hits, six runs, four walks, three strikeouts). Cal got three runs in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Brady, a wild pitch by Inman and an RBI single by Guinn. The Bears added two more runs in the fourth inning on Tonneson's two-run homer to left field.

But Stanford battled back to get within 5-4 with four runs off of Cal freshman right-hander Matt Flemer (4.0 innings, six hits, four runs, one walk, two strikeouts) on RBI doubles by Kellen Kiilsgaard and Toby Gerhart and a two-run homer by Jonathan Kaskow in the fourth inning. However, the Bears were able to get an insurance run in the bottom of the fourth on another Guinn RBI single, and an insurance run in the sixth inning on Jackson's lead-off homer off of Cardinal reliever Alex Pracher for a 7-4 lead.

Stanford still threatened by scoring a run in the seventh inning on Kaskow's RBI single and a run in the top of the ninth on an RBI ground out by Kiilsgaard, before Smith stopped the Cardinal rally. Both teams finished with nine hits on the day. Jackson was 2-for-4 with his home run to extend his hitting streak to all 18 games this season.

Cal will next play the second game of the three-game series in versus Stanford, Sunday, March 22 at 1 p.m. at Evans Diamond.

Home Runs:

Stanford: Jonathan Kaskow, two-run homer in the fourth inning.

Cal: Dylan Tonneson, two-run homer in the third inning. Brett Jackson, solo home run in the sixth inning.