The California baseball team is back on the East Coast this weekend for its second straight ACC road test as the Golden Bears will face Wake Forest in a three-game series starting this Friday at David F. Couch Ballpark in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
 
Cal (13-11, 0-6 ACC) heads into the weekend on an eight-game skid in search of its first conference win and will take on a tough Demon Deacons team that was ranked No. 24 last week before losing two out of three to No. 9 Virginia. Wake Forest (17-7, 4-5) sits in 10th in the conference standings but is one of the best teams in the ACC when it comes to getting on base, ranking fourth with 163 walks and sixth with a .431 team OBP. The Demon Deacons' pitching staff paces the conference with 301 strikeouts this year but has the fourth-highest team ERA at 5.21.
 
Game Information                                                                                                                                           
 
Wake Forest
Game 1
·       Date and Time: Friday, March 27, at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET
·       Location: Winston-Salem, NC| David F. Couch Ballpark
·       Live Stream: ACCNX/ESPN+
·       Live Stats: Statbroadcast
Game 2
·       Date and Time: Saturday, March 28, at 1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET
·       Location: Winston-Salem, NC| David F. Couch Ballpark
·       Live Stream: ACCNX/ESPN+
·       Live Stats: Statbroadcast
Game 3
·       Date and Time: Sunday, March 29, at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
·       Location: Winston-Salem, NC| David F. Couch Ballpark
·       Live Stream: ACCNX/ESPN+
·       Live Stats: Statbroadcast
 
Promo Schedule
The 2026 Cal Baseball promotional schedule is now available and features several theme days, giveaways and discounts. Season tickets and single-game tickets can be purchased on CalBears.com.
 
Probable Starters
Boston College
Game 1: RHP Oliver de la Torre vs RHP Blake Morningstar
Game 2: RHP Ethan Foley vs RHP Chris Levonas
Game 3: RHP Gavin Eddy vs RHP Troy Dressler
 
Streaks + Multis
Freshman Jett Kenady has been Cal's top offensive player as of late reaching base safely in the last 15 straight games while fellow freshman Lawson Olmstead has the longest active hitting streak at eight games. Kenady is also tied with junior Hideki Prather for the most multi-hit games this season with nine. Graduate Student Daniel Murillo leads the way with eight multi-RBI games.
 
Prather Named Top-20 Catcher
After not being ranked during the preseason, junior catcher Hideki Prather was named the No. 20 catcher in the country on D1Baseball's Midseason Top 50 Catchers list. Prather is slashing .362/.464/.670 for the Bears so far this season and leads the team in OPS (1.123), runs (23) and doubles (11), and he is tied for the team lead with five home runs. He was the No. 7 ACC catcher on the list.
 
Top-50 National/ACC Rankings
Doubles – 16th/2nd – 56
Hits – 41st/6th – 239
ERA – 35th/5th - 4.03
 
11 Straight Ws
The Golden Bears streak of 11 straight wins that spanned five different opponents from Feb. 21-March 8 was tied for the second longest win streak in program history. It was the longest streak since 1989 and second only to a 14-game win streak by the 1931 team. The run started with Cal taking the final two games of its road series with UC Irvine, a team that reached an NCAA Regional Final last year, and included a three-game sweep over Sacramento State and a four-game sweep over reigning WCC regular-season champion San Diego. In those 11 games the Bears outscored their opponents 93-33, outhit them .343-.198, hit 21 home runs to their six, and won the team ERA battle 2.20-8.15. Cal's starting rotation had an ERA of 2.21 in 61 innings of work and its bullpen carried a 2.34 ERA in 34.2 innings.
 
New Bear Production
Much of Cal's success so far this season can be attributed to its freshmen and transfers as that group has combined for 63.5% of the team's hits, scored 64.3% of its runs, and hit 21 of its 32 home runs. On the mound, the newcomers accounted for 53.1 of the team's 93.1 innings pitched in relief, with seven Bear arms making their collegiate debuts during the opening weekend of the season. Freshman Otto Espinoza leads that group with the third most strikeouts on the team with 29 in 23.2 innings of work and has only allowed four earned runs for a 1.52 ERA.
 
San Diego Sweep
Cal swept its four-game series with San Diego with a run differential of 40-13 with the Golden Bears outhitting the Toreros .392 to .208 and winning the team ERA battle 2.06 to 11.08. The Bears' bullpen allowed just one earned run the entire weekend and the starting rotation had an ERA of 2.45 led by freshman Otto Espinoza, who in his first collegiate start went seven full innings and allowed just one run while striking out 10 batters, the most by any Bear this season. A freshman led the way on offense too with shortstop Jett Kenady hitting .467 with a 1.133 slugging percentage. He recorded two home runs, a triple, a double and four RBI and scored seven runs.
 
Sac State Sweep
The Bears earned their second straight series win and first sweep of the year after winning all three games with Sac State from Feb. 27-March 1 in Sacramento. After falling behind 4-0 in Game 1, the Bears used four solo home runs to come back and walk off the Hornets. It was sophomore Jordy Lopez who collected his first career homer in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth to get the series started with a win. From there the tone was set as starting pitchers Ethan Foley and Gavin Eddy went deep into Games 2 and 3 to ensure the Bears could bring out the brooms. Cal's pitching staff had a 1.33 ERA in the series and the offense doubled up the Hornets with a run differential of 16-8. Third baseman Cade Campbell led the Bears with a slash line of .583/.615/1.250 to go with two home runs, two doubles, four RBI and four runs.
 
Rotation + Prather Lead Bears To Series Win
Cal's 2-1 road series win over UC Irvine, a team that was receiving votes in multiple polls, was heavily influenced by its starting rotation and its new starting catcher, Hideki Prather. The weekend rotation of Oliver de la Torre, Ethan Foley and Gavin Eddy combined for 14 innings and allowed just four runs (2.57 ERA), two walks and a .241 batting average to the Anteaters while striking out 14. Foley earned his first win of the season with five innings of two-run ball and Eddy picked up his first win as well, spinning five full scoreless innings with a career-high tying eight strikeouts.
 
Prather, who had four collegiate plate appearances to his name at Clemson, emerged as one of the top bats in the lineup for the Bears. In addition to catching all three games, the junior went 6-for-13 (.461) with two home runs, three doubles, five runs and four RBI at the plate. In the leadoff spot, he had a slugging percentage of 1.154 and only struck out once. He jumped on the very first pitch of the game on all three days, falling just feet short of a home run in Game 1 on Feb. 20, crushing his first collegiate home run to the same part of the field in Game 2 on Feb. 21 and roping a double down the left field line in the Feb. 22 series finale.
 
Walk-Off Déjà Vu
The Bears' first two wins of the season both came in walk-off fashion on the same day. Due to an inclement weather forecast, Cal and Santa Clara played a Feb. 14 doubleheader, which boded well for the Bears as they collected two come-from-behind wins. Trailing 4-1 in the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 1, the Bears put up a two-spot and scored a single run in the eighth to tie the game at 4-4 before junior transfer Hideki Prather roped a walk-off double in the bottom of the ninth to give his new team its first win of the season. Cal trailed early once again in Game 2 but found itself tied 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth. This time it was graduate transfer Daniel Murillo, who scored the game-winning run in Game 1, who slashed a walk-off double of his own.
 
D1Baseball Preseason Positions List
Three Bears were named to D1Baseball's preseason positions lists, with Jacob French checking in as the 13th-ranked second baseman in the nation and sixth in the ACC. Third baseman Cade Campbell was ranked 31st nationally and fifth in conference while starting pitcher Oliver de la Torre came in at 97th on the list of 200.
 
The 2026 Roster
This year's team features several new faces, with 14 new pitchers and 14 new position players making up over half of the dugout. Eighteen of those 24 first-year Bears are freshmen while the others came over through the transfer portal. Cal returns 17 letterwinners from 2025, including 12 pitchers and three starting position players.
 
Second Time Through
This will be Cal's second ACC campaign after joining one of the top conferences in the sport last year. The Bears went 9-21 in conference in 2025 but picked up five nationally ranked wins, including a 5-0 shutout over No. 2 Florida State. This year, the Bears will face five ACC opponents that were ranked in D1Baseball's preseason top-25 poll, including conference favorites No. 5 Georgia Tech and No. 1 North Carolina.
 
Head Coach Mike Neu
Mike Neu is in his ninth season at the helm and has led the Golden Bears to winning campaigns in five of his first seven seasons, excluding the shortened 2020 season. Neu is only the third Cal head coach since 1977 (Bob Milano 1977-99, David Esquer 2000-17, Mike Neu 2018-present).
 
2025 Recap
A young 2025 Cal baseball team came on strong at the end of the campaign by reaching the quarterfinals at the ACC Championship as the Golden Bears knocked off No. 9 and No. 8 seeds Miami and Wake Forest, respectively, in their first two contests. The performance in Durham, North Carolina, capped a strong final month that also included a 5-0 shutout victory over a No. 2 Florida State squad and a series victory against Boston College. The win over the Seminoles was one of four over ACC teams that reached the NCAA Super Regionals (Duke, Florida State, Louisville, Miami), with the Cardinals also a College World Series participant. In addition, the 2025 campaign featured a 7-2 record on a season-long nine-game road trip that was highlighted by a historic series sweep of then No. 14 Stanford that was Cal's first three-game road sweep of the Cardinal in recorded history. Third-Team All-ACC selection Jacob French (.390) had the team's highest batting average and Cal pitchers spread the wins around with 11 recording at least one victory apiece.
 
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