The ace pitcher missed the last month of the 2022 season after being injured in an improbable accident.
The No. 2 is a former reliever who did not pitch in a college baseball game last year.
And the third-game candidates are multi-taskers.
After losing three in a row to UConn, the Hawaii baseball team won five of the next six, in large part to dominant starting pitching. During that six-game stretch, Rainbow Warrior starters have a combined for a 1.39 ERA and 0.84 WHIP while averaging 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings.
The past weekend against Tulane, Harry Gustin allowed one hit in seven innings, and Randy Abshier pitched a one-hitter over six innings. Alex Giroux, who pitched two-thirds of an inning in the series opener, came back two days later to throw four scoreless innings in his second start of the season.
Entering Friday’s opener of a three-game road series against Cal State Fullerton, the ’Bows’ starters are adhering to pitching coach Mathew Troupe’s insistence on first-pitch strikes, getting ahead in the count on the first three pitches, and using all pitches in all counts.
“That’s Pitching 101, but that’s the truth,” Troupe said. “It’s a consistent message after we got our butts absolutely whupped against UConn. We just need to continue to put our heads down and continue to work.”
For the ’Bows, a series’ tone is set with Friday starter Gustin. Against Cal State Bakersfield last April, Gustin finally was finding his groove during an uneven freshman season. His fastball was consistently at 91 or 92 mph, even touching 93. “He was pumping the zone, and then — boom! — he gets hurt in a freak accident,” Troupe said.
While throwing batting practice in Fresno, Gustin slipped, landing awkwardly and breaking the second metacarpal bone in his left (throwing) hand.
“It was terrible timing,” Gustin said. “I was starting to pick it up.”
Troupe said: “He then almost kind of reset the progression. He was back to square one. He missed a lot of reps that would have been ideal.”
During the offseason, Gustin worked on improving his strength and pitch command. While his fastball has power and curveball has bite, it is his slider that offers the most action. “The spin, the break — horizontally and vertically — it’s all good,” Troupe said of Gustin’s slider. Gustin also added a cutter. “It’s new, and he’s having success with it,” Troupe said.
Abshier, who transferred from Arizona in August, previously pitched in 2021, when he made 20 appearances — all in relief. His longest outing was 32⁄3 innings against Arizona State. “He would try to light up the gun,” Troupe said of Abshier’s 92-mph velocity. “Fastball attack, fastball attack, now here’s the slider. But the large majority was the fastball. We learned early this season, that’s just not how it’s going to work as a starter.”
Troupe and graduate manager Grady Miller helped Abshier add a changeup and cutter. Giroux showed his teammate his slider grip. “We did a little makeshift off the slider to a cutter grip, and now (Abshier) has four pitches,” Troupe said. “If you have two and the slider’s not working, if you’re fastball only, that’s just not going to fly. When you have four, and one’s not working, you still have three. That’s good starting pitching to have a repertoire of three or four pitches you can consistently put in the zone.”
The ’Bows are reusing last year’s tactic of drawing the series-finale starter from a pool that includes pitchers who threw in the first two games. Giroux, who is 3-0 with a team-best 0.81 ERA, and freshman Harrison Bodendorf have been effective in relief of Gustin and Abshier.
“Now with Giroux and Bodendorf doing what they’re doing, it’s nice, because we can attack game one,” Troupe said. “Let’s say we lose that one, we can attack Saturday, win that one, and more often than not, either Bodendorf or Giroux will be able to start on Sunday. Very similar to last year’s approach using Andy (Archer) and Buddie (Pindel) out of the bullpen. We’re going to use the same approach. Shoot to win those first two games using Giroux and Bodendorf out of the bullpen, and if the score doesn’t speak to it, there’s a rough outing or something, one of them will be available Sunday.”
Troupe said two-player Ben Zeigler-Namoa and Dalton Renne, who played baseball and basketball at Chemeketa Community College in 2020, also are candidates to start on Sunday.
