By Austin Turner — Columnist
The Spartans’ arms simply couldn’t keep up with their bats.
San Jose State (5-12) dropped Tuesday’s mid-week bout to Cal (6-11) in a 9-8 nail-biter in Berkeley.
The loss wasn’t without fireworks for the Spartans’ offense early on. Sophomore Ruben Ibarra belted his third home run of the season in the bottom of the first, giving the Spartans a quick 1-0 lead.
The Golden Bears quickly retaliated when sophomore Grant Holman launched a two-run shot in the bottom of the frame.
A Ruben Mercado RBI sacrifice fly helped the Spartans tie it back up in the top of the second, thus ending Golden Bears’ starting pitcher Mitchell Scott’s outing after just 1.1 innings and 2 earned runs.
The Golden Bears went on to retake the lead in the fourth on an RBI groundout, and SJSU starter Jake Hernandez was pulled from the game after four innings and 3 earned runs.
The pitching change didn’t slow Cal down. Relief pitcher Josh Caldwell gave up a solo homer to freshman Nathan Martorella in the fifth, extending Cal’s lead to 4-2.
This is when the Spartans’s bats got hot.
After loading the bases with no outs, Drew Williams opened the flood gates for SJSU with a 2 RBI single, scoring James Shimashita and Troy Viola. After Connor Konishi successfully laid down a bunt-single ro load the bases again, a wild pitch allowed Jack Colette to cross home plate. Johnny Mendoza then singled in the Spartans’ 5th run of the sixth inning, giving them a 7-4 lead.
But the Golden Bears simply wouldn’t back down. They answered with four runs in the bottom of the frame after loading the bases themselves to start the inning. Two singles and a sacrifice fly put them ahead 8-7. They tacked on another in the seventh to bring it to 9-7.
Johnny Mendoza batted in another for the Spartans on a groundout in the eighth, but they simply couldn’t bring in the ninth despite a powerful offensive performance.
Caldwell was given the loss for the Spartans with 2 innings pitched, 6 hits given up and 5 runs allowed.
Cal used six pitchers in the game, with none of them going longer than 2.0 innings.
The Spartans will look to keep up the offense and fix the pitching this weekend when the Northern Colorado Bears come to San Jose for a three-game set beginning Friday. The games will presumably still go on as scheduled despite growing concern from the NCAA about the coronavirus.
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