The loss of ace freshman Kurt Heyer on a comebacker that struck him in the head on Thursday might have taken the air out of Arizona’s first road trip.
After winning 15 games in a row, the No. 19 Arizona baseball team is now mired in a four-game losing streak.
The Wildcats came back from the Bay Area empty handed in their first road trip of the season, falling in both games of Saturday’s doubleheader against the California Golden Bears , 8-0 and 4-3.
No. 20 Arizona (20-8, 2-4 Pacific 10 Conference) couldn’t salvage its loss to the Golden Bears 7-2 on Thursday in the final two games due in large part to a lack of production from its usual offensive barrage.
Arizona’s bats tallied just five runs in three games against Cal (16-10, 3-3), which has not been the formula for success for head coach Andy Lopez’s team.
Justin Jones, Cal’s starting pitcher in the first game of the doubleheader, stifled Arizona over eight innings of work to hand the Wildcats their first shutout loss in two seasons.
Joey Rickard, Rafael Valenzuela and Robert Refsnyder all went 0-for-4 while Seth Mejias-Brean went 0-for-3 in the contest. Refsynder has a .423 batting average on the season, good for fourth on the team. Mejias-Brean and Rickard follow him with .396 and .367 averages, respectively.
The lineup managed just five hits off Jones and couldn’t give any support to sophomore starting pitcher Bryce Bandilla, who fell to 3-2 on the season after pitching 4 2/3 innings and giving up four earned runs.
Arizona’s defense made three errors in the first game that coughed up some runs, as only four of the eight runs Cal scored were charged as earned runs to Wildcat pitchers.
Sophomore Kyle Simon toed the rubber in Game 2 on Saturday, hoping to prevent a sweep.
The Wildcats led the second game 2-0 through the fifth inning behind the right arm of Simon, but a three-run bottom of the fifth for Cal gave the Golden Bears the lead.
Simon battled through five innings, letting up only one earned run, but a pair of Bears crossed home plate as the defense again made three errors in the game.
Redshirt sophomore Bobby Brown tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the sixth with a sacrifice fly that scored sophomore Steve Selsky, but the Golden Bears capitalized with a two-out RBI single in the seventh to take a 4-3 lead for good.
Valenzuela continued to struggle against Cal pitching, once again going 0-for-4 in the second game of the double header.
Rebounding after the sweep will undoubtedly be a focal point as the Wildcats return home to Tucson before beginning the second part of their seven-game road trip.
Lopez’s squad will take a second stab against Washington in a three-game series set to begin in Seattle on Friday.
