An inexperienced Hawaii baseball team showed some jitters once the crowd filled in at Les Murakami Stadium.
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12
OREGON
0
HAWAII
KEY: The ‘Bows commit six errors and Oregon puts up a seven spot in the sixth inning.
NEXT: UH vs. Oregon, 1:05 p.m. Saturday
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The Rainbow Warriors committed six errors and No. 16 Oregon took advantage with a seven-run sixth inning to win 12-0 in the season opener on Friday night.
Matt Eureste and Jakob Goldfarb homered and Brandon Cuddy doubled twice, tripled and scored four runs to help the Ducks extend their winning streak against Hawaii to 12.
A sellout crowd of 4,061 was the largest for a UH home opener in Mike Trapasso’s 14 years as head coach.
"That’s the disappointing part. We had a full house and didn’t show how much better we are," Trapasso said. "We’re so much better than that and we didn’t show it, so we’ve got to flush that and understand if you give up freebies, you’re going to get pounded."
The 12-run loss was UH’s worst on opening night. The six errors were the most in a game since April 22, 2011 against Valparaiso.
Hawaii started six position players with no Division I experience and they combined to go 1-for-13 with four strikeouts and four errors. Freshman Alex Jondal, who was a defensive replacement for Chayce Ka‘aua in the eighth inning, added a throwing error in the ninth.
Hawaii starter Tyler Brashears allowed five runs (four earned) on six hits in 51⁄3 innings with no walks and three strikeouts in his UH debut.
"I felt like I was battling, trying to hit my spots as much as possible, but I made some mistakes and they hit it," Brashears said. "We made a few too many mistakes on defense … but when that happens you can’t let errors affect you and hope they help you the next time and keep doing your job."
Oregon sophomore Cole Irvin, who missed all of 2014 with an elbow injury, was impressive in limited action.
Ducks coach George Horton allowed him to throw 44 pitches, which was enough to get through four innings. Irvin allowed only two hits and didn’t walk a batter with four strikeouts.
Reliever Conor Harber threw five shutout innings in relief to get the win.
Kaeo Aliviado, Alan Baldwin, Stephen Ventimilia and Eric Ramirez combined for UH’s four hits.
Oregon led 1-0 after two pitches when Eureste led off with an opposite-field home run to left that got up in the jet stream and carried over the fence.
Brashears said he didn’t even see it go over the wall.
"When he hit it, I thought routine fly ball, so I kicked the dirt around and then I heard the crowd ‘ooh’ and I looked back and Baldwin was running to the fence and it went over," Brashears said. "I haven’t seen the ball carry to left like that in any practice."
The Ducks plated a run in the second inning without a hit as shortstop Jacob Sheldon-Collins and third baseman Alex Sawelson, both junior college transfers, threw balls away at first.
Phil Craig-St. Louis singled home Cuddy on a ball in the fourth inning that got under the glove of Baldwin in left and rolled all the way to the wall.
Oregon put the game away in the sixth, tagging Brashears for a leadoff double and a one-out triple to end his day.
Relievers Alex Hatch and Juliene Jones were ineffective as Hatch allowed an RBI single, a walk and a hit batter and gave up a run on a wild pitch before he was replaced by Jones.
Jones hit the first batter he faced and gave up a two-run homer to Goldfarb, who battled back from an 0-2 count to send a 3-2 pitch over the wall in left.
"The moment was a little big for Alex, but he’ll learn from that," Trapasso said. "Outside of that, honestly, I don’t know what we learned from (the game). We haven’t played that bad since our first day of practice in September, so tip your hat to (Oregon) and I’m just disappointed that our fans didn’t get to see us play better than that."
