A front-loaded offense and back-ended pitching boosted the Hawaii baseball team to Saturday’s 8-5 victory over UC Davis at Dobbins Stadium in Davis, Calif.
The Rainbow Warriors’ first five batters combined to hit 11-for-25 and drive in five runs. Dylan Thomas quelled a late rally for a five-out save, his ninth of the season.
In winning the first two of this three-game series, the ’Bows improved to 18-10 overall and a league-leading 4-1 in the Big West.
“The goal is always to win the series, but when you do that in the first two games, it’s about understanding you only have 24 conference games,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said in a telephone interview. “That’s a small window. Every single game has equal weight and value. You can’t be comfortable you won the series because you may drop a series here or there, and every game is its own special thing because all 24 count and they’re all tallied in the end.”
Johnny Weeks and Adam Fogel each had three hits. Leadoff hitter Maaki Yamazaki and clean-up batter Logan Pouelsen had two hits apiece, and No. 5 hitter Kekai Rios had a hit and drove in two runs.
The ’Bows scored three in the fifth inning, two in the sixth, and two in the eighth to take a 7-1 lead. That should have been enough to avoid drama and support starting pitcher Neil Uskali. But the Aggies’ slider-seeking approach forced Uskali to exit after six relatively successful innings.
Reliever Cade Smith survived a two-single seventh, but was tagged for four runs in the eighth, as the Aggies closed to 7-5.
“I felt bad for Cade,” Trapasso said of Smith, who entered with the team’s best earned-run average. “He was bad. He couldn’t locate anything. You’re going to have those days. … There’s no panic on our part because we had the lead and if it got interesting, we’d go to Dylan. It’s a shame you have a six-run lead and you’ve gotta do it. But that’s baseball.”
The ’Bows added an insurance run in the ninth on the Aggies’ fourth error.
The game’s tone was set early. In the series opener on Thursday, the ’Bows relied on breaking pitches. On Saturday, the mostly right-hitting Aggies waited for sliders from the right-handed Uskali.
“There’s no question they changed their approach because we were so slider-heavy in Game 1,” Trapasso said. “You could see in the first inning, they were all sitting on the slider. And they got two base hits on good sliders.”
After the Aggies went ahead 1-0 on Caleb Blake’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the first, Uskali started to jam the hitters. When the Aggies looked for inside fastballs, Uskali threw sliders away. Uskali allowed two hits from the second through sixth innings. But the meter was running, forcing his departure after 94 pitches.
“To me, it goes back to Neil having four walks and getting deep in counts,” Trapasso said. “There’s a good reason for that because (the Aggies) really battled and they’re very good offensively. But if he’s more efficient with his command, then he’s going seven or eight innings, because he had really good stuff today.”
