In time for tonight’s game at Les Murakami Stadium, the light tower in right field has been repaired.
For the Hawaii baseball team, the next DIY project is fixing its inconsistent pitching and defense.
“I’d like to see us play cleaner,” said head coach Mike Trapasso, whose Rainbow Warriors play host to Hawaii Pacific in a four-game series beginning with today’s first pitch at 6:35 p.m. “That’s our focal point. We want to play better defense in particular. … I’d like to see us get back to a walks-per-game average of about 2, 2.5.”
In last week’s season-opening road series against Arizona State, the ’Bows committed five errors in a doubleheader loss.
“We can’t make five errors in a two-game stretch,” Trapasso said. “We can’t make five errors over a weekend. We should go a weekend with one or two errors at most.”
The ’Bows also issued 12 walks in the three-game series, including seven in the second game.
“It’s kind of a simple formula,” Trapasso said. “If we can play clean, we’ll have a chance to win any game against anyone. If we don’t, we have a chance to lose any game against anyone.”
Trapasso indicated the ’Bows might have netted season-opening butterflies last week. “The second weekend,” he said, “you should see improvement in eliminating emotion, and the focus being more on the task at hand rather than the noise around you.”
Trapasso has implored his pitchers to “pound the zone,” parlance for throwing to the lower half of the strike zone. The companion phrase is to pitch to the cup, the knees of the catcher. Trapasso said the ASU hitters feasted on pitches up in the zone.
“That’s where Arizona State was effective in hunting elevation,” Trapasso said. “They were very good at hitting the elevated ball. The reality was there very few balls in the cup they made contact with for base hits. That’s normal baseball. We need to get back to having passion for the cup.”
Trapasso added: “Whether it’s the No. 1 guy on your staff or the No. 17 guy on your staff, we expect 100% of the time guys pounding the zone and pitching ahead in the count and not walk guys. And we didn’t do that (against ASU), and that’s a failure on me, and we’ll get back to work.”
Aaron Davenport, who walked one and struck out seven ASU batters in seven innings, will start tonight. Cade Halemanu will pitch tomorrow. Halemanu struck out five but walked five in five innings against ASU.
“I want to see Cade Halemanu pound the zone because that’s so unlike him to go out there and be so wild,” Trapasso said. “It’s really not like him. We haven’t seen that out of him all spring in our scrimmages. He’s been pounding the zone at a pretty impressive rate (in scrimmages). We just need him to settle down, and go out there and relax, and throw the ball down in the zone.”
The likelihood is freshman Austin Teixeira, who pitched two scoreless innings last Friday, will get the call for Saturday’s 1:05 p.m. start. Trapasso said he has not decided on a Sunday starter.
This week, Trapasso said, he would like to give at-bats to Safea Villaruz-Mauai, Nainoa Cardinez, and Jacob Igawa. “All the new guys, I want to get them opportunities,” Trapasso said.
Trapasso said he would also like to see more production from the middle of the lineup. Against ASU, the third, fourth and fifth hitters went 4-for-30 with two runs and six RBIs. In the series finale, the middle of the order went 0-for-12.
NCAA BASEBALL
>> WHO: Hawaii (1-2) vs. Hawaii Pacific (0-0)
>> WHERE: Les Murakami Stadium
>> SCHEDULE: Today and Friday at 6:05 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 1:05 p.m.
>> TV: Spectrum Sports on Friday and Saturday
>> RADIO: KKEA-1420 AM on Thursday, Friday and Sunday; KHKA-1500 AM on Saturday
>> LIVE STREAM: BigWest.tv
>> ATTENDANCE: No fans permitted
