Schedule has been tough, but ‘Bows need some wins

Some University of Hawaii baseball fans have understandably lost their sense of humor with the home team dropping six consecutive conference games in its own park the past two weekends. The catcalls were scattered but loud toward the end of the latest defeat Sunday.

It’s good, however, to see coach Mike Trapasso still manage a heartfelt laugh when it was suggested the homestand-ending 8-3 loss to Cal Poly was probably not the way he would like to bid aloha to the old scoreboard at Les Murakami Stadium.

It’s not that he doesn’t care; it’s just that the Trapasso of a few years ago would let these losses eat him up from inside.

The old scoreboard was scheduled to be torn down this morning, with the fancy new one in a nearby Matson container awaiting installation in time for the next home game, May 2. The Rainbows might break the thing on the first night since they’re playing the New York Institute of Technology, the not-so-proud owner of a 1-27 record.

Before then, during the upcoming seven road games (six Big West, one at USC), UH hopes to have cured what ails it now — inconsistent relief pitching, uncharacteristically shoddy defense and a lack of timely hitting.

It can be hard to figure how a team wins two out of three to open the Big West season at UC Santa Barbara and then doesn’t win at home. That is, until you consider who UH has played recently: UC Irvine and Cal Poly, two of the best teams in one of college baseball’s best conferences.

Yes, strength of schedule is a huge factor in the Rainbow Warriors’ 14-19 overall and 2-7 conference records and the remaining games are mostly against much more manageable opposition.

But, when defense is considered a team strength and you give up unearned runs in one-run losses, there really is no excuse. That happened Friday and Saturday against the Mustangs, and two fielding miscues Sunday led to three more unearned runs and made it seven total errors for the series.

Hawaii left 30 runners on base for the series, which is also not good if you’re losing. And that number might have been higher except that UH did not get a hit in the first game after five in the first two innings.

The Rainbow Warriors built a 2-0 lead early Friday, and even the early outs against Poly ace Matt Imhof were well hit. The Rainbow Warriors were just one or at the most two more run-producing hits from knocking Imhof out early, and that would have had a potentially decisive trickle-down effect on the entire series.

But Imhof escaped and lasted six innings before handing a 3-2 lead to closer Reed Reilly, and Reilly set down all nine UH batters he faced to save it.

"That’s how you get beat by great teams," Trapasso said. "When you don’t take advantage when the opportunity is there."

Saturday was more of the same, on a wet, sloppy night. Not cashing in at the plate and not making all the plays in the field at critical points.

The pattern continued Sunday — final score not as close, but a very questionable decision to send a runner around third with one out, trailing by four in the bottom of the eighth, severely damaged Hawaii’s comeback chances.

It took a very good throw, and Trapasso didn’t agree with the out call. He said he was OK with the decision, since the No. 9 batter was due up next.

But it was another example of how UH hurt itself all weekend, something it could not afford to do against the fourth-ranked team in the country, and expect to win.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.