Stanford’s pitching struggled and the bats couldn’t get anything going on Tuesday night in Berkeley as No. 18 Cal (22-11) avenged an earlier midweek loss to Stanford (19-12) with a 5-2 victory to hand the Cardinal their third defeat in four games.
Cal pounded out 11 hits as a team, led by Brett Cumberland’s three RBIs on a 2-for-5 night that including a solo home run in the third inning, providing the first run of the ballgame. Five Golden Bears notched multi-hit games, while the only Cardinal batter to do so was sophomore Quinn Brodey, just one game removed from his heroic go-ahead, inside-the-park home run at Arizona.
Fifth-year senior John Hochstatter and junior Brett Hanewich both had ineffective outings on the mound, with Hochstatter allowing two runs in three innings pitched and Hanewich taking the loss after giving up three runs in just one inning of work. Tuesday marked Hanewich’s second straight shaky outing after the righty was pulled after just two innings against UCLA after walking three.
Though freshman Kris Bubic, junior Tyler Thorne, sophomore Keith Weisenberg and sophomore Colton Hock combined for four shutout innings of relief, the Cardinal couldn’t keep pace with Cal thanks to another quiet day from the bats, which didn’t score a run until the fifth inning and only managed five hits on the night.
Stanford fell behind early for the fourth straight game when Cumberland and Nick Halamandaris both connected for solo homers in the third to give Cal a 2-0 lead. Although the Cardinal managed to tie the game a few innings later after a Jack Klein sacrifice fly in the fifth and a Brodey RBI single in the sixth, Cal pulled away with three more in the bottom half of the inning to provide the final margin.
Aaron Knapp led off the inning with a triple off Hanewich and scored on a Brian Celsi sacrifice fly. Cumberland added a two-run double with two outs to stretch the lead to 5-2. Though Stanford put runners on first and second with one out in the eighth, the Cardinal didn’t have another late Berkeley rally in them and failed to score after a foul out and a strikeout.
Stanford will next return home for a three-game tilt against Arizona State at Sunken Diamond, with the first pitch in Friday’s opener set for 6 p.m.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.