It’s evident following Hawaii’s opening home baseball series that coach Mike Trapasso has a lot of work to do.
New Mexico’s 7-1 victory over the Rainbow Warriors on Monday night clinched the series for the Lobos (3-1), who touched up Hawaii’s pitching for five homers and 34 runs scored and tallied double-digit hits in each of the four games.
7
NEW MEXICO
1
HAWAII
KEY: Lobos’ Jack Zoellner hit a three-run homer in the fifth inning.
NEXT: Hawaii at San Francisco, 8 a.m. Friday
UH (2-4) scored only one run in 18 innings after a walk-off win on Saturday night and leads the country with 38 walks allowed after giving up five more on Monday.
That number doesn’t include the two Hawaii Hilo games, and yet despite all of that, Trapasso, who hasn’t won a home-opening series since 2008, hasn’t wavered in his optimism about the season ahead.
“Nothing that I saw this weekend makes me think anything other than what I thought going into this weekend,” Trapasso said. “This is going to be a good club.
“The reality is (New Mexico) is better than us this weekend. There’s no question about that at all, but I’d also love to try play them again late in the year when all of our starters are up to 110 to 115 pitches and keep us in games because that would be a fun challenge.”
After suffering its worst home loss in an 18-0 rout on Sunday, Hawaii came back with senior Alex Hatch, who made his first start in two years with the ’Bows before a crowd of 874.
Hatch, who missed two weeks of the spring with a hamstring injury, ran into two rough spots that did him in, with junior first baseman Jack Zoellner delivering the decisive blow with a three-run homer to right in the fifth inning that landed on the street.
Zoellner reached base in 16 of his 23 plate appearances in the series.
“It was exciting, nerve-wracking, every emotion honestly,” said Hatch, who gave up six runs on eight hits with two walks and five strikeouts and got extended to 92 pitches. “If you hung anything, they would capitalize on it. They’re a solid ball club offensively.”
Hatch didn’t get any help from his offense, which finished 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and had the bases loaded with less than two outs in the final two innings and couldn’t score.
Hawaii also had runners on first and third with nobody out in the first inning and came up empty.
UH’s only run came on an Eric Ramirez RBI single in the sixth inning to drive in Jacob Sheldon-Collins, who doubled to lead off.
Ramirez, Sheldon-Collins and Alan Baldwin each had two hits and Johnny Weeks and Kekai Rios singled in the ninth to round out UH’s eight hits in the game.
“With the ability we have to be good, it’s a little disappointing to come out there and not get the job done when we needed to,” said Sheldon-Collins, who is hitting .385 (10-for-26). “It takes the wind out of you to get runners in scoring position like that (and not score).”
Hawaii also was hit by the injury bug for the second time this weekend. Catcher Chayce Ka’aua was already sidelined four to six weeks after breaking his middle finger sliding into second base on Friday.
On Monday, junior outfielder Marcus Doi slid hard into second base trying to break up a double play in the second inning and injured his ankle.
Alex Fitchett replaced him in the outfield to start the third inning.
“He’s off right now to get an x-ray and I won’t know anything until later tonight,” Trapasso said. “It’ll be a nervous evening until I hear about that. He said he heard a pop and that’s always a scary thing.”
Matt Valencia, Isaac Friesen and Casey Ryan, who all pitched in Saturday’s win, held the Lobos to an unearned run over the final four innings.
Up next is a three-game series on the road against San Francisco that begins Friday. All three games will be played at Saint Mary’s.