Today at 2 p.m., one of these very good West Coast teams will be cleaning out their lockers. The Cal baseball team (33-20-2) and Long Beach State (37-20) each have one loss in this regional round of the NCAA tournament, so the next one to drop is done. The Bears were expected to start freshman phenom Kevin Miller. The righty leads the team with a 2.56 ERA and owns a 6-2 record, and was an All-Conference Honorable Mention. But head coach David Esquer is going to go with the best matchups, and that means starting lefty Craig Bennigson (6.79, 4-4) against the Dirtbags. Long Beach State features four left-handed hitters, including leadoff man Jordan Casas, third-place hitter Jonathan Jones, cleanup hitter Shame Peterson, and eight-hole hitter Jason Tweedy.

Also unexpected is the Dirtbags’ decision to not start Vance Worely, who the Bears have already seen this season. Instead of his No. 2 starter, Long Beach State head coach Mike Weathers is going with sophomore transfer Brett Lorin, who played at Arizona last season. The righty is 4-3 this season in 14 appearances with a 2.49 ERA, a far cry from his 9.31 mark over 9 2/3 innings last season as a freshman for the Wildcats. He will have to face a lineup that starts with three left-handed hitters: leadoff man Rich Gorman (a switch-hitter), left fielder Charlie Cutler and first baseman David Cooper. He gets a “rest” with righty Josh Satin (who was crushing the ball in batting practice) and then has to face lefties Brett Jackson and Blake Smith. It seems apparent that Esquer is a firm believer in the value of the lefty-righty matchup.

It’s a bit warmer today than it was yesterday afternoon, so the ball should carry a bit more, though how much that matters in a cavernous field like this is probably negligible. There should be a larger crowd here than there was yesterday given that the “away” team is the host of this little shindig. The crowd will be decidedly in favor of the Dirtbags, and given that this is their home field, you can throw out the records between these two teams this season. While the Bears swept Long Beach State in Berkeley the weekend of mar. 28-30, this is not Evans Diamond, despite the fact that Cal is wearing its home whites.

And the storylines keep on multiplying for this game, as two former Bears, catcher Travis Howell and right fielder Jason Corder, are both in the starting lineup for the Dirtbags, and both have many friends still on the Cal team. These two squads are very familiar with one another, so this should be one heck of a chess match, and it’ll be personal.