The showers hit, and then the University of Hawaii baseball team hit the showers after Friday’s Big West game against UC Davis was rained out at Les Murakami Stadium.
The game will be rescheduled as part of a doubleheader today. First pitch is 3 p.m.
“We tried,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “We even got our pitchers hot, which is something you normally don’t do.”
But after starting pitcher Brendan Hornung completed his bullpen session, heavy rain forced the stadium grounds crew to cover the mound and home-plate area. There was a brief reprieve, but soon after uncovering half of the mound, another downpour extended the delay. Twenty-five minutes after the scheduled 6:35 p.m. start, the umpires postponed the game.
“You get to that point where you realize if this continues to be heavy and you have to keep going off the field and going back on, you’re going to eventually hit a spot where you can’t send your pitcher out there,” Trapasso said. “And nobody wants to do that on the first game of a series and lose your No. 1 pitcher on a rain delay in the fourth inning.”
The same lineup and starting pitchers will be used for today’s first game because the lineup cards were exchanged before the rain delay.
Chayce Ka‘aua will make his 2017 debut as the designated hitter. Ka‘aua hit .260 with a team-high nine doubles as a second-year freshman in 2015. He was limited to 27 games in 2016 after suffering a broken finger. He had not played this season while recovering from a hernia. He recently was medically cleared to play.
“I kind of think with six weeks left in the season, we’ve eased him plenty good so far,” Trapasso said. “The reality is, if we don’t get him some at-bats and start playing him, what are we doing? We might as well redshirt him, but we don’t want to do that. We want him to help us down the stretch. We’re still early in the conference. It’s a great time for him. He’s feeling it. He’s one of our better guys, we think.”
Outfielder Marcus Doi, who has two at-bats in six Big West games this season, is scheduled to bat sixth against UC Davis left-hander Robert Garcia. Doi, who is a right-handed batter, is hitting .429 against lefties this season.