The No. 11 Cal baseball team (15-5-1, 2-1 in the Pac-10) again hit a stumbling block in its midweek game, this time losing its second straight extra-inning affair at Santa Clara, 7-5. The Broncos got to Bears closer Matt Gorgen in the bottom of the 10th, when Matt Long went long against the junior fireballer, tagging Gorgen for a two-run walk-off home run.

On a lighter note, senior second baseman Josh Satin just keeps on chugging. Satin smacked his ninth home run of the season (a two-run job in the top of the first) to pull even with junior first baseman David Cooper for the team lead in longballs. The roundtripper extended Satin’s school-record hitting streak to 25 games. Satin is now ahead of Cooper for the team lead in RBI, knocking in 27 to Cooper’s 26. Isn’t competition great? If these two keep besting one another, it’s a good bet that Cal will have two 20+ home run hitters by the end of the season.

On the injury front, catcher-turned-left-fielder Charlie Cutler is making great strides in getting back behind the plate after recovering from a broken finger. While his injured left pinky isn’t under a whole lot of stress while he is hitting (as a left-handed hitter, his bottom hand is his right), it’s still encouraging to see the junior flat-out raking. He had three hits on Tuesday to bring his season average to .346. As an added bonus, Cutler has only struck out twice in 30 plate appearances. Billy Beane would be proud.

Up next for the Bears this weekend is No. 5 Long Beach State (16-3), with the first pitch of the weekend series scheduled for 2:30 p.m. this Friday at Evans Diamond in Berkeley. Looks like junior righty Tyson Ross will go for Cal (his seven inning performance against Washington State proving that he has recovered from a sore lat muscle) in the Friday tilt, while all signs point to either Andrew Liebel (2-0, 1.14 ERA in 5 starts) or Vance Worley (3-0, 2.97) taking the hill for the Dirtbags.

Coming with Long Beach State will be former Bears catcher Travis Howell, who transferred following the 2006 season, and is now sharing time as the Dirtbags’ backstop, starting 10 of the team’s 21 games. Another former Cal player will make his return to Evans along with Howell: former Bears outfielder Jason Corder, who is hitting .417 in the 14 games that he has seen action as a Long Beach State outfielder.

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