So far, Trapasso’s tirade seems to have hit home

Mike Trapasso said it was part planned and part unstaged.

It seemed more spontaneous, as in combustion.

"It was worse in the locker room," Hawaii’s baseball coach said of his postgame explosion that started in the dugout after the Rainbows fell to Gonzaga on March 11. The 3-1 decision dropped UH to 1-15. You know things aren’t going well when your record looks like the name of an Interstate.

And this wasn’t just another loss. This was in 12 innings, after Hawaii had come within one strike in the ninth of its first home win of 2013 — a month into the season.

"I woke up the next day with a sore foot from kicking the door about five times," Trapasso said.

It’s not uncommon for frustrated baseball coaches to shake things up by delivering verbal blasts at the team in general while physically attacking inanimate objects. And it can be effective.

The Rainbows finally won the next night, beating the Zags 2-0 on Matt Cooper’s three-hitter. Then, after seven days off, they won again, last Wednesday against Wichita State. UH ran the streak to three the next night, and has now won four of five since The Tirade.

The outburst is the turning point of the season so far — and just in time as Hawaii opens its first Big West season Thursday here against UC Santa Barbara. But it’s not something of which Trapasso is proud.

"It’s the one thing I hadn’t tried yet," he said.

Junior Conner George said a team meeting the next morning helped just as much, if not more.

"It led to a personal moment the next day as a team," George said. "It brought us to the same level, coaches and players. It opened lines of communication."

A message about timing at the plate got through. George now consistently gets his front foot down earlier. So does Marc Flores, by eliminating a big leg kick.

"One, I’m on time for the pitch," George said. " And, two, I see the pitch better."

It sounds simple, but adjusting isn’t always easy for players who were successful their entire careers doing things a different way.

"(The leg kick) worked for me in high school and junior college," said Flores, who also admitted it had become a stylish personal flourish. "Yeah, totally. You look a little cooler. I had to fail before I would change."

Flores is hitting .409 in his past 22 at-bats (with four doubles and the team’s only home run), raising his season average from .200 to .288. George has elevated from .222 to a team-high .298 by batting .400 in his past 20 at-bats.

The team has batted .368 in the five games since Trapasso’s, uh, kick-start. It was at .193 in the first 16.

"The first teams we played had really good pitching and we were all struggling," Flores said. "Now we’ve started seeing the ball better and it built up our confidence. Big West pitching will be good. But I feel like going up against that pitching from Oregon and Rice made us better."

Said Trapasso: "We could see signs of coming out of it against Gonzaga. There wasn’t a single day when they quit working."

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Reach Dave Rearadon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783.