Taking the week off for finals didn’t hurt the Cal baseball team (32-17-2, 11-10 in the Pac-10) too much, as the Bears dropped two spots to No. 15 in the weekly poll after coming in at No. 13 last week.  Stanford (31-19-2, 12-8), which had three games last week, also dropped two spots after going 2-1.  This weekend will be huge for Cal, even though UCLA (29-23, 11-10) has fallen far from its lofty preseason No. 1 perch.  The Bruins find themselves in much the same situation as Bears teams of recent years, going into the final weekend desperately trying to cash in enough wins to make the NCAA tournament.

Despite season-long struggles, UCLA finds itself tied for third place with Cal, and will likely look to this weekend as a chance to leapfrog the ascendent Bears.  Before the season began, Cal head coach David Esquer said of this final series, “I hope it matters.”  Guess what, Coach: it will.  While it is all but a certainty that the Bears will make it into the postseason, having been ranked in the top-25 nearly the entire season, a series loss to the Bruins just may put some doubt in the minds of the selection committee.

Cal does have one huge advantage going into this weekend: a lot of rest, and home cooking.  While the Bears lost their last midweek game to UC Davis (no shame there, as the Aggies are likely another Regional-bound team), their last Pac-10 series at the Cardinal’s Sunken Diamond was a resounding success, as Cal took two of three from the then-No. 6 Stanford squad.  Weekend heroics earned closer Matt Gorgen the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week, as he notched a win and a save in the crucial series.  Before last weekend, the Bears were 2-10 at Sunken since 2004.

But back at home, Cal is all but futile.  The Bears are 20-5-2 at Evans Diamond this year and if the series against the Cardinal was any indication, starters Tyson Ross and Craig Bennigson look to be back to their old ways, which should cause concern among Bruins hitters.  On May 9, the opener of the Stanford series, Ross allowed only one run through eight innings, before allowing a pair to score with two outs in the ninth.  Ross’s strikeout numbers weren’t quite what we’ve come to expect from the big righty (he only whiffed five), but his velocity and movement were definitely back to where they should be.  Against a team like UCLA, which is decidedly not the caliber of the Cardinal, Ross should be able to pile up the K’s.  The Bruins are hitting .273 as a team and have struck out 430 times.  Stanford is hitting .301 collectively, and Cardinal hitters have struck out only 390 times.

Bennigson, who had struggled as a starter and was even moved to the bullpen for several weeks, was dazzling in his Saturday start.  The lefty tossed six innings, allowing seven hits, two runs and only two walks to four strikeouts.  He got up big time for that key series, and should perform similarly this weekend if he can get his head right.

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