With the first pick of the second round (50th overall), the Washington Nationals select … Cal second baseman Jeff Kobernus.

Turns out the scouts weren’t lying to Bears coach David Esquer when they told him Kobernus wouldn’t last past the third round. Kobernus is a tall, lanky middle infielder with good range who helped his own cause by spending the last month or so of the 2009 season in an unconscious state every time he picked up a bat.

And as we speak, Bears right fielder/first baseman/designated hitter/pitcher Blake Smith is drafted with the 56th overall pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Smith and Jackson were the ones who got all the hype going into 2009, Smith mostly because of his performance last summer with the Team USA Collegiate National Team.

(Click here to read more…)

10:34 — Just got back from my quick visit to the dugout and field (had to do it — I had the creds, and I used ‘em!) and it was supremely cool. Guys looked upbeat, happy, talkative (their quotes are essentially unusuable banter however … Thanks Mike, Daniel and Todd … for nothing)

Thanks for all of you who tuned in to the live blog this evening. Hope you got something out of it and had a little fun. Matt and I definitely did. Keep checking back at dailycal.org for more Cal baseball coverage, as always, and have a great night!

10:17 — And it’s over, blessedly for the Bears. Braunecker with the comebacker to Smith who throws to first for the final of the game. Cal will leave this place winners tonight, as the most perfect song imaginable comes on — Lights by Journey.

10:16 — The plot thickens. Johnson doubles to right, but it’s not deep enough to drive in Poppert who has to hold up at third. Runners on second and third, two out.

10:14 — Bernatz grounded out to second, Lipkin struck out. That leaves Poppert as the last hope. And he delivers with a ringing single over Kobernus at second to drive in Zach Kim. Two out, the tying run at first base. Johnson’s at the plate. 4-3 Cal. (Click here to read more…)

Cal baseball is three weeks into the season, and I think the time is right for a few interesting details about the team that have emerged over the course of the past few weeks.

Deceptive Power

Remember the explosion of home runs during the Bears’ last home stand? Don’t be too excited about that power, says first baseman/right fielder/starting pitcher/Captain America (unconfirmed) Blake Smith.

“(Against UC Riverside) was a weird day for the wind here. The wind is normally never like this,” Smith said after the February 20-21 series. “You saw more home runs in three games than I think we had in the whole first month last year. It’s not going to be like that.”

Cal has eight home runs on the year so far, three of those from sophomore first baseman/outfielder Mark Canha (your Pac-10 Player of the Week). (Click here to read more…)

Alright, folks, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover in your Friday Cal baseball update, so let’s hit the ground running.

I got a chance to sit down with outfielder/first baseman/pitcher (yeah, I know) Blake Smith and center fielder Brett Jackson earlier this week, and the duo were both revealing and pleasantly talkative. There are too many great quotes to fit in just one blog post, so I’ll include more in another update down the road.

First off, the big news: Smith is indeed slated to start this season.

“I think tentatively I’m set to start on Sunday against Vanderbilt,” Smith said. “I’m excited. It’s going to be interesting to see how it works out.” (Click here to read more…)

I sat down with coach David Esquer the other day to discuss the early developments of the Cal baseball team. Here are some of the highlights of the interview:

On adjustments to the pitching and defensive lineups:

“We’ve probably got to try to establish the pitching roles. We’ve got guys who’ve put themselves in position through the fall, but nothing’s in stone. (There will probably be) a couple infield adjustments. Try to put people in the right spots, but we’re gonna have a few kids who’ll play multiple positions. No lineup will be set until 20 games into the season, I would imagine. It’s not gonna happen quick. We’re not gonna come out of the chute and play the same lineup every day.” (Click here to read more…)

As the collegiate baseball season steadily creeps up upon us, the preseason watch lists have also emerged. The Cal baseball team-coming off its first postseason appearance since 2001-has a handful of players making noise on the national stage.

Sophomore right-hander Kevin Miller (you know, the fresh-faced freshman pitcher who didn’t give up an earned run in his first 44 innings) has been tabbed as a Wallace Awardwatch list-er. The Wallace Award is given to the best collegiate baseball player in the country and has been bestowed upon such players as A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki and Alex Gordon, third baseman of the Royals. In his first year with the team, Miller boasted an ERA of 2.90 with opponents batting just .196 against him, both good for second in the Pac-10.

Junior Brett Jackson, the Bears’ starting center fielder, has been named the No. 13 player in the country by the College Baseball Blog. Last year, the speedy outfielder hit .307 with 40 RBI and started all 56 games for Cal. He also led the Bears with 12 stolen bases.

Last but not least, Cal’s resident renaissance man-pitcher/outfielder Blake Smith-also picked up no less than three preseason nods. The junior has been deemed the No. 16 player in the country by the Blog, a second-team All-American preseason selection by Louisville Slugger and is also on the watch list for the Wallace Award. Smith, who will likely provide the offensive firepower for the Bears this season, was third on the squad last year in RBI (43) and was 3-0 as a hard-throwing relief pitcher.

During the summer, Smith was busy burning up the international circuit as a utility player on the USA Baseball National Collegiate Team. En route to a gold-medal, 24-0 season, Smith led the team in batting average (.327), and notched 13 RBI in just 20 games. On the mound, Smith maintained an ERA of 0.00 with 11 K’s in nine innings of relief work.

The Bears begin the 2009 campaign at home against UC Riverside on February 20 at 1:30 p.m.

5:33: I just broke the first rule of being a sports journalist: I cheered in the press box.  Josh Satin, a fellow Southern-Californian and Dodger fan, a senior, just hit a walk-off home run to left-center field to win his last home game ever at Evans Diamond.  The Bears win 7-6 in 10 innings, out-hitting UCLA 16-13, but all that counted was one.  Satin was mobbed at the plate, and lifted up on his team’s shoulders, as he should be.  All four of his grandparents are here, and they all saw his 18th home run to win the game.  Boy, oh, boy, what a game this is, this game of baseball.  (Click here to read more…)

UPDATE 9:33: Cal staged a last-minute mini-rally, but it fell woefully short. Jackson fouled out to Braunecker to lead off the inning, but Dylan Tonneson cracked a solid single into left center field to give the Bears some hope. Canha came up and dunked a dying quail down into right field to advance Tonneson to third, and B.J. Guinn, in his first at-bat of the game, flied out to center to score Tonneson on the sacrifice. But that was all she wrote, as designated hitter Michael Capbarat grounded into a fielder’s choice to the shortstop to end the game.

Cal scored one run on six hits, with five errors, while San Francisco scored five runs on eight hits and committed no errors. (Click here to read more…)

The Cal baseball team got slapped hard by Sacramento State today at Evans Diamond. 12-6. Damn. I can easily say that this was the worst I’ve ever seen the Bears play in my three years covering them. Five errors by Cal and only four earned runs out of 12 for the Hornets. See tomorrow’s article in the Daily Cal for the down and dirty.

But for now, here are a few notes. (Click here to read more…)

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. (Click here to read more…)