April 22, 2011

Final Stats

BERKELEY -

The No. 9 Arizona State Sun Devils handed the No. 15 California Golden Bears their first shutout of the season, defeating Cal 5-0 Friday in Berkeley.

One day after the two teams played a marathon 17-inning game with each team using four members of their bullpen, Cal and ASU played a quick 2:11 game with complete game performances by both starters.

Cal's best scoring opportunity came in the seventh. Junior catcher Chadd Krist led off the inning with a walk. Sophomore center fielder Darrel Matthews singled to center to put runners on first and second with two outs, but the Bears could not convert on the opportunity.

"This was one of the few times all year we have been beaten, really beaten," said head coach David Esquer. "ASU just came out and beat us. We didn't help ourselves, but they came out and played a good game. Didn't matter if it was going to be 1-0, 2-0, or 3,4,5-0, they beat us today. The difference was we made a lot of first-pitch outs and they got a lot of lead-off runners on base. They kept the pressure on us and played a good ball game."

Sophomore left-hander Justin Jones took the loss for the Bears. Jones threw just 100 pitches in his 9.0 innings of work, giving up five earned runs on nine hits, four of which were doubles. He did not strike out a batter.

Matthews was the only Bear with two hits, going 2-for-3. Krist snapped a seven-game hitting streak, however he has now reached base safely in each of his last eight games.

This was the first time Cal had been shut out in a game since Feb. 24 of last season when they fell 8-0 to UC Davis. It snapped a streak of 63 consecutive Pac-10 games in which Cal had scored at least one run. Their last Pac-10 shutout was an 11-0 loss to Washington State on March 28, 2009.

With the loss, Cal falls to 24-11 (9-5 Pac-10) while Arizona State improves to 27-9 (10-4 Pac-10).

The two teams will wrap up the series on Saturday, April 23, playing at 1 p.m. at Evans Diamond. Junior right-hander Dixon Anderson (4-1, 3.40 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Bears.