Hawaii lost a starting pitcher and then lost a Big West baseball game to UC Davis, 6-3, on Saturday night at Les Murakami Stadium.

Before a crowd of 1,217, the Aggies took advantage of the Rainbow Warriors’ aim-challenged bullpen and absentee offense to even the three-game series. The finale is at 1:05 p.m. today.

UH right-hander Cade Smith was cruising in his first start after nine relief appearances this season. Smith retired eight of the first nine Aggies on six grounders and two strikeouts.

“I felt good,” Smith said. “I was going after hitters, and they were getting themselves out. I was trying to be efficient.”

But with two outs in the third, Tanner Murray hit a liner off Smith’s right thigh for a single.

After being checked by trainer Wade Yamasaki, Smith threw three warmup pitches. He then handed the baseball to head coach Mike Trapasso, exiting after 22⁄3 innings with a 1-0 lead.

“It was right above my knee, so I got lucky,” Smith said. “But, still, it swelled up pretty good, and it’s kind of stiff. I couldn’t put any weight on it. Once I was out of the game, it really stiffened up. I got really lucky it didn’t hit the knee. No bone. It was just muscle.”

The ’Bows’ momentum soon followed Smith into the dugout.

The Aggies tied it at 1 in the fourth when Logan Denholm walked, sprinted to third on Li‘i Pontes’ errant pickoff throw, then scored on Caleb Van Blake’s sacrifice fly. Pontes appeared to be feeling lingering effects from flu-like symptoms suffered earlier in the week.

The Aggies moved ahead with a three-run fourth inning. Colton Evans and Murray reached on one-out singles, then both scored when Cooper Morrison pulled a drive into the right-field corner for a double. Morrison scored when Denholm rocketed an opposite-field shot to right.

The Aggies added two runs in the eighth against Carter Loewen and Calvin Turchin — UH’s fifth and sixth pitchers — for a comfortable cushion.

“The eighth inning was a tough one because Turchin pitched great,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “He didn’t pitch good, he pitched great.”

The Aggies loaded the bases when Alejandro Lara hit a high chopper that third baseman Ethan Lopez fielded but threw too late to first. After a short-to-catcher-to-first double play, Kyler Arenado singled past Lopez for the Aggies’ final two runs.

“You couldn’t have thrown to a better spot,” Trapasso said of Turchin’s pitch to Arenado. “It wasn’t hit hard. It was a perfectly placed slap hit.”

The ’Bows scored two two-out runs in the ninth, but pinch hitter Jacob Sniffin struck out on a 3-2 pitch to end the game.

“Getting two in the ninth, you can’t feel you were this close, even though we had the tying run at the plate, because we had seven scoreless innings leading up to that.”

And the ’Bows could not match Smith’s productivity. Smith threw strikes on 71 percent of his pitches. The ’Bows’ next four pitchers — Pontes, Jeremy Wu-Yelland, Cade Halemanu and Loewen — found the zone on 45.6 percent of their combined 74 pitches.

“That’s a tough break,” Trapasso said of losing Smith, “but you have to come back out. The guys who are pitching have to pick up the slack, and we didn’t do that. We didn’t score. The story of the game was their pitcher. He was just carving us up most of the game.”

In his best start of the season, freshman Jake Spillane allowed three runs in 82⁄3 innings despite not striking out a UH player.