UH on a roll, hits the road to take on Minnesota

Don’t look now, but they’ve got a winning streak going.

Yeah, it’s just two games. But things could’ve been a lot worse for the University of Hawaii baseball team. It didn’t look good midway through the just completed four-game series with San Francisco.

UH had dropped the first two games, both in 11 innings.

So Rainbow Warriors coach Mike Trapasso has to be heartened by his team coming back with 3-2 wins on Saturday and Sunday as Hawaii now preps for its first road trip of the young season at 3-4 overall.

Certainly, UH’s pitching in the early going is to be applauded. The Rainbows now have posted quality starts in all seven games and that includes three against the heavy-hitting NC State Wolfpack with whom Hawaii opened the season.

The team ERA is 2.69, and it was 1.57 in the four-game set against the Dons.

Conversely, though, UH is batting just .202 as a team. The ’Bows managed just four hits Sunday. No regular is batting above .250.

“We didn’t swing the bats all weekend,” Trapasso said.

And that’s why lead-off hitter — well, make that lead-off batter — Dylan Vchulek is such an important key to Hawaii’s offense. He finds ways to get on base when he isn’t hitting … or even when he isn’t walking or getting hit by pitches.

After starting off a hot 4-for-8 plus three walks against NC State, Vchulek cooled off by going just 1-for-13 in the four games against USF. But that is somewhat deceiving, since his box score line of 2101 on Sunday was decisive in the win.

He started the bottom of the first with a grounder that forced a hurried, high throw by third baseman Allen Smoot. It was correctly ruled an error, but it was one of those plays that would have been routine for the defense with an average-speed runner moving down the line.

Then, a pitch from Dons starter Sam Granoff bounced a couple of feet in front of catcher Dominic Miroglio. Most base-runners would have hesitated until it was too late to consider going for second. But Vchulek’s instincts told him he could make it, and he did.

“Kind of like what John Wooden used to say,” said Trapasso. “‘Be quick, but don’t hurry.’”

“It was a good dirtball read,” Vchulek said.

But, by score-keeping definition, it is a wild pitch and not a stolen base.

Thus, with baseball’s arcane and inane scoring rules being what they are, Vchulek’s stats weren’t improved by plays that put him in scoring position — plays which involved his speed and savvy as much as opponent mistakes.

Regardless of how he got there, he was on second with nobody out. Johnny Weeks promptly singled through the right side, and Vchulek crossed the plate with UH’s only first-inning run since the second game of the season, an 8-3 win over NC State eight days prior.

Later, in the fifth, Vchulek provided the sacrifice fly that scored Dustin Demeter from third. At the time it was an insurance run, and Hawaii needed the policy since the Dons scored in the seventh.

It’s true that something better than 1-for-13 batting at the top of the lineup could have made a difference in the first two losses of the series. But Vchulek’s 0-for-2 on Sunday was a winning 0-for-2. As much as some stat geeks would want you to believe it, baseball isn’t always a numbers game.

“Mentality-wise it’s good knowing Coach has the trust to keep putting me in that leadoff spot, counting on me to get a quality at-bat,” Vchulek said. “It doesn’t matter to me how I get on. I just want to get in the pitcher’s head and make it easier for the two, three or four guy to get me in.

“Going back to seventh grade I was always the leadoff guy, working counts. I learned that an eight-pitch walk can be as good as a hit,” he said.

Vchulek smiles in agreement when I mention that sometimes an eight-pitch out is even as good as a hit — maybe when you’re trying to provide an instant scouting report for your teammates, or wear out an opponent with a short bullpen on the last day of a series.

“It’s always a dogfight, and I enjoy that kind of setting,” he said.

Vchulek’s on-base percentage dropped Sunday. But he won his most important dogfights of the day and because of that the Rainbows head to Minnesota with a winning streak.