These Rainbow Warriors have the mind-set to change recent trend

A lot has changed since Alan Baldwin’s first official Hawaii baseball practice.

The Rainbows, as they were still called at the start of the 2011-12 school year, were preparing for their final season in the Western Athletic Conference and Kolten Wong had just become the first UH player selected in the first round of the MLB draft in 15 years.

They had won a WAC tournament title and a regular-season championship in the previous two seasons and made it to a regional final in 2010.

Times were good. But the success hasn’t continued since.

The Rainbow Warriors, as they are now referred to, moved to the much tougher Big West Conference and only last year finished .500 in league play for the first time. Hawaii has endured three consecutive losing seasons, which had never happened in program history.

Baldwin has gone through all of that and thinks 2016 could be different. He said it started the first week of practice last August.

“We could tell from the first couple of weeks of practice that this team holds each other accountable,” Baldwin said. “The way we’ve been getting after it is different from any year before.”

Not a lot is expected of this group despite a fifth-place finish in the BWC last season with a 12-12 record.

Hawaii was picked seventh out of nine teams in the preseason Big West poll, largely because of an inexperienced pitching staff.

It was the same a year earlier when UH replaced 330 of its 470 innings. This season, the ‘Bows are replacing 345 of their 463 innings.

Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso admitted he doesn’t have the power arms he had a year ago. Three UH pitchers with eligibility remaining were drafted and signed last summer, creating so much turnover a second straight year.

As a result, the way UH replaces those innings this season will have to be different.

“We’ve been through this before,” Trapasso said the first day of spring practice. “You have turnover every year. We think we have (a staff) with more strikes and if we can get our walks-per-game average down to where we’re used to being, we’ll be able to make up for the lack of a power arm.”

Hawaii can make up for that inexperience early with a lineup returning most of its starters from last year.

The benefit of starting four or five freshman position players for most of a season is getting them back a year later much stronger and more experienced.

Hawaii doesn’t figure to start a single freshman in the field on opening day. That doesn’t mean UH didn’t bring in any young talent. Ethan Lopez, an infielder from Whittier, Calif., and catcher Kekai Rios from Kamehameha are freshmen good enough to play right away.

The problem is, all five starters who hit .254 or better last season are back and UH added two potential big-time bats in second baseman Josh Rojas and outfielder Alex Fitchett.

Fitchett will miss the first few weeks of the season with a shoulder injury, but even in his absence, the potential to score runs, something UH hasn’t done well since switching conferences, is clearly there.

“Our motto that comes from Trap is pitching, defense and execution offense, but I like offense and we have a good one this year,” said senior Alex Sawelson, who hit .262 with eight doubles last season. “I think we have a good shot at winning some games with our bats as well as the rest of it.”

Spoken like a true designated hitter, but the reality is Hawaii will have to be solid defensively, especially with a staff that will pitch more to contact than relying on swings and misses.

It’s why as improved as UH is offensively with Johnny Weeks at third and Rojas at second, defense is what will keep a player in the lineup.

“We started over the last couple of years making sacrifices defensively for offense to try and get more offense and we weren’t as good defensively and that was an issue,” Trapasso said. “We’re going back to a team whose identity is defense and pitching first and execution offense, but while I say that, I think we’re capable of being a much better offensive club.”

BIG WEST

How the teams finished last season