Synergy a big part of Rainbows’ game plan in Big West play

Synergy was useful in helping the Hawaii baseball team prepare for today’s opener of a four-game road series against Cal State Fullerton.

The Rainbow Warriors, like most Division I baseball teams, use the Synergy Baseball program to scout opponents. The program provides subscribers video clips of opposing teams’ every at-bat and pitch.

“That’s why we always talk about dive into the Synergy,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “I’m talking about the software program.”

In scouting Fullerton, Trapasso spent several hours watching and charting every pitch in 35 overall and 16 Big West games. Trapasso estimated a starting Fullerton hitter has faced about 450 pitches.

“The program categorizes each pitch into swings, fouls, swings and misses, and balls in play. “You’ve got the result (of each pitch), the location, the velocity, the pitch type,” Trapasso said. “It takes some time (to evaluate), but it’s well worth it.”

A few years ago, the Big West mandated that member teams sign up for Synergy. For games at Les Murakami Stadium, a camera is set up in the video well in center field. After the game, the footage is uploaded to Synergy. The program then edits and sorts the videos. Those cut-ups are available as early as the next morning while also being added to the season-long archives.

But similar to the car-riding game of players taking turns adding to a story, the information — and evaluation time — increases exponentially as the season progresses.

“It’s a neat program,” Trapasso said. “All our players can go in and look at their at-bats and all their pitches. They all have an account where they can go into it and take a look. We’ve been doing it for a few years now.”

Trapasso said there is no “real” competitive advantage because most teams use the program.

“But it’s how we try to get scouting reports,” said Trapasso, whose ’Bows are the Big West’s only non-California member. “We used to get on the phone and call previous opponents to get the scouting report emailed or faxed to you. We don’t do that anymore.”

This weekend is the first of UH’s back-to-back road series. After a bye next weekend, the ’Bows return to the mainland to play Cal State Northridge.

For this trip, Trapasso opted to leave off left-handed pitcher Austin Teixeira from the 30-player travel roster. Teixeira was scratched from last week’s start after experiencing inflammation in his pitching triceps. Trapasso said he considered bringing Teixeira to at least get in bullpen sessions. But with the upcoming bye, it was decided Teixeira would benefit more from a three-week layoff to allow the inflammation to subside. “I think he’ll be back to 100% when we go to Northridge,” Trapasso said.

The ’Bows’ starting pitchers will be Aaron Davenport today; Cade Halemanu and Li‘i Pontes in Saturday’s doubleheader, and Logan Pouelsen on Sunday.