After four straight losses to No. 7 Oregon to start the season, the Hawaii baseball team finds itself in the same situation as a year ago.
Is this UH team destined for a similar season as last year’s 16-35 disappointment?
Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso doesn’t think so, even after Monday’s 10-2 loss to the Ducks that ran Oregon’s winning streak to 11 against the Rainbow Warriors.
Hawaii (0-4) hit .200 with one extra-base hit in the series, but squandered two potential wins due in large part to 13 uncharacteristic errors.
"I’d prefer to play them at full strength and that’s not going to be for a couple of weeks, but nothing I saw this weekend changed my mind on what I think of our ball club and what I think it will become a month from now," Trapasso said. "Sure we’ve got to shore up some things … but we will. We’ve got some guys battling for positions and we were able to learn a lot."
Monday’s finale in front of a Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 1,579 was the first time the Ducks (4-0) played up to their top-10 ranking.
Oregon jumped on UH early with two runs in the first and two more in the third, and starter Jeff Gold (1-0) didn’t give up anything cheap, allowing his only run on a two-out RBI single by Jordan Richartz in the fifth.
Oregon only committed one error after making eight in the first three games and pounded out 10 hits to win in convincing fashion.
"I thought we played almost a complete game today," said Oregon coach George Horton, who earned his 900th win as a collegiate head coach. "We feel very good about it and the fact that we played well means a lot more to me than the fact it happened to be a milestone for me."
Oregon pounded Hawaii starter Scott Kuzminsky (0-1) for seven runs on eight hits in seven innings.
Third baseman Scott Heineman broke an 0-for-14 skid to start the year with three hits, including a line drive up the middle for a single on the game’s first pitch.
Oregon turned it into a run as Heineman stole second and scored on Tyler Baumgartner’s RBI single.
UO added a second run as a double steal allowed Baumgartner to score from third on a sacrifice fly by Mitchell Tolman.
The leadoff hitter was key all series for Oregon, which scored in 12 of the 15 innings its first batter reached base. When the leadoff man didn’t reach, the Ducks scored in four of 22 innings.
"In the BBCOR (bats) era with a Division I pitcher, it’s hard to get a lot of hits," Horton said. "You better make your outs productive and you better have a game that allows you, when you’re not hitting balls in alleys or over someone’s head, to score runs, and getting the leadoff hitter on is a big part of that."
Freshman Marcus Doi, who hit leadoff for the Rainbow Warriors all series, singled in the third to hit safely in all four games.
So did Kaeo Aliviado, batting second in the lineup behind Doi, who singled twice against Gold and led UH with six hits in four games.
"Just trying to get good at-bats each day," Aliviado said. "Every at-bat is different and you try to come in with a different approach and just keep swinging it."
Kuzminsky pitched a lot better in his first career start than his final line indicates.
He did not walk a batter, and three of Oregon’s five hits in the first three innings never left the infield.
Kuzminsky was saddled with three more runs after coming out to start the eighth and failing to record an out.
Starters Matt Cooper and Jarrett Arakawa combined to throw nine innings in the first two games, forcing UH to go to its bullpen early and often.
That forced Trapasso to stick with Kuzminsky in the eighth and Oregon took advantage, scoring six runs off four different UH pitchers.
"They didn’t give us the innings we needed and we saw that effect in our bullpen yesterday and today," Trapasso said. "Kuzminsky pitched his tail off and I thought the four runs they got early, a lot of it was just bad luck, a lot of slow ground balls."
Trapasso hinted that he might shuffle his rotation a little for the upcoming four-game series against Albany, which begins Thursday.
Junior Scott Squier might move ahead of Arakawa to try to eat up more innings from starters early in the series.
Arakawa is on a strict pitch count as he continues to work his way back from an injury that forced him to miss all of last season.
Freshman Quintin Torres-Costa, who is still weeks away from pitching as he also recovers from injury, pinch hit for Stephen Ventimilia in the ninth inning and hit a sacrifice fly for UH’s second run.
Oregon 10, Hawaii 2 |
Oregon |
AB |
R |
H |
BI |
UH |
AB |
R |
H |
BI |
Heineman 3b |
5 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
Doi lf |
5 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
Payne 2b |
3 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
Aliviado cf |
4 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
Baumgartner rf |
4 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
Richartz dh |
3 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
Houston ph |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Flores 1b |
4 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Grebeck rf |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Hanawahine rf |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Tolman 1b |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
Hurley ph |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
Garlick dh |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
Podratz c |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Balta lf |
3 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Pollakov c |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
Chase c |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Wobrock ss |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Bryant ph |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
Jones ph |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
Kruger c |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Brewster 3b |
4 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Hofmann cf |
4 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
Ventimilia 2b |
2 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
Minjares ss |
3 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Torrs-Csta ph |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Totals |
34 |
10 |
10 |
7 |
Totals |
34 |
2 |
8 |
2 |
Oregon (4-0) |
202 |
000 |
060 |
— |
10 |
10 |
1 |
Hawaii (0-4) |
000 |
010 |
001 |
— |
2 |
8 |
2 |
E—Heineman; Kuzminsky; Ah-Sam. LOB—Oregon 4, Hawaii 8. 2B—Heineman. HBP—Tolman. SH—Payne 2. SF—Garlick; Balta; Torres-Costa. SB—Baumgartner 2; Heineman; Tolman.
Oregon |
IP |
H |
R |
ER |
BB |
SO |
Gold (W, 1-0) |
6 |
5 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
Clayton |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Tessar |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Karraker |
1 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
Hawaii |
IP |
H |
R |
ER |
BB |
SO |
Kuzminsky (L, 0-1) |
7 |
8 |
7 |
7 |
0 |
3 |
Ah-Sam |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
Gleese |
1⁄3 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
Cardenas |
2⁄3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Elms |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Kuzminsky faced 3 batters in the 8th Ah-Sam faced 2 batters in the 8th WP—Gold; Kuzminsky; Cardenas. HBP—by Ah-Sam (Tolman). PB—Podratz. Umpires—(Plate): Kelly Gonzales. (First): Kevin Daugherty. (Third): Dixon Stureman. T—2:40. A—1,579.