The No. 12 Cal baseball team dropped the back end of Saturday’s doubleheader against Loyola Marymount to snap its nine-game winning streak, but before the Lions got the better of the Bears, Cal hitters put on a helluva show in the morning half.

The Bears decimated Loyola Marymount 21-9 off of 19 hits, and slammed six roundtrippers, including one by leadoff hitter Rich Gorman, who is generously listed at 5-foot-9. As a sidenote, Gorman popped another leadoff bomb in today’s win as well. Those are his first and second career home runs, respectively. But the big fireworks came from the usual suspects. Tied at 6-6 going into the bottom of the sixth, Cal pulled away on the backs of back-to-back-to-back home runs. First, sophomore third baseman Jeff Kobernus roped a grand slam to left center field off of Lions starter Mike Kenney for his second home run of the season, putting the Bears up 10-6. But they weren’t done yet. Junior first baseman David Cooper destroyed an offering from reliver Lee Roberts, hitting his seventh longball of the season off the top of the batters’ eye in dead centerfield.

As seems the pattern of late, senior second baseman Josh Satin’s bat said “anything Coop can do I can do better,” as the veteran infielder cracked the next pitch from Roberts OVER the batters’ eye for his seventh jack. Ouch. That inning defied the Geneva Convention’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Sophomore Blake Smith and junior Michael Brady also went yard. Including going 2-for-4 on Sunday, Satin has extended his hitting streak to a career-high 16 games.

Brady has looked very impressive in the field lately, coming back nicely from his defensive hiccups against San Francisco. He continues to be very impressive with his range and his arm. In my opinion, he is a very underrated fielder.

The only reason the Bears dropped the second game 6-2 is the fact that maybe some of the bats were a little tired. They took a lot of cuts in the first game, even with some late-inning substitutions (which probably could have been made sooner). But they came back hard today and picked up the series win to up their record to 13-2-1, their best start in head coach David Esquer’s tenure. Don’t quite know how this will affect their ranking come tomorrow morning, but I’d bet it won’t go up or down. Loyola has some quality wins, but they haven’t really come into their own yet. They’re a team right on the edge, so losing the back end of a doubleheader isn’t a crisis. A sweep would likely have upped Cal a spot or two, but it’s hard to say what a 3-1 weekend will do. Stay tuned. If anything, the offense will get A LOT more respect. The Bears haven’t scored that many runs in a game since 2005.