Long Beach State parlayed Hawaii’s generosity into Friday’s 5-4 baseball victory at Blair Field in Long Beach, Calif.

A crowd of 1,645 saw the Dirtbags turn two hit batsmen and two errors into four runs, including two unearned runs in the eighth inning, to doom the Rainbow Warriors to their fifth consecutive loss.

“We had four freebies on the night, and all four came around to score,” said UH coach Mike Trapasso in a postgame phone call. The ’Bows dropped to 20-29 and 8-15 in the Big West.

In the top of the eighth, the ’Bows took a 4-3 lead on Brennan Hancock’s first home run of the season, a drive that soared over the wall in center field.

Trapasso then beckoned closer Dylan Thomas to replace freshman Aaron Davenport, who struck out 10 in seven innings.

“You would take that scenario any day of the week, to have Dylan Thomas on the mound with a one-run lead in the eighth,” Trapasso said.

The thing was, the ’Bows had to rearrange their defense because shortstop Maaki Yamazaki still was experiencing shoulder pain when he tried to make long throws. The past two weeks, Yamazaki and Hancock alternated at designated hitter. On Friday, Yamazaki was the DH, Hancock played left field, Jack Kennelly was at short, and Daylen Calicdan played second. Hancock was playing left for the first time this season, and Calicdan was at second for the first time since the season-opening series.

LBSU’s Santino Rivera reached when Calicdan fielded a chopper and threw too high to first baseman Alex Baeza. Rivera went to second on a passed ball, and advanced to third on Laine Huffman’s sacrifice. Jacob Hughey followed with a towering fly to deep left. Hancock misjudged the arc and the ball fell for an error, allowing Rivera to score the tying run. One out later, Aidan Maim blooped a single to right and Hughey scored from second with the go-ahead run.

Trapasso acknowledged the ’Bows traded defense for offense to use Yamazaki and Hancock in the same lineup. And while the two eighth-inning errors contributed to the final outcome, the tone probably was set an inning earlier.

UH was up 3-1, with Davenport’s meter at 73 pitches. But Davenport plunked Chris Jiminez and Maim to open the seventh. Both runners advanced on Chase Luttrell’s sacrifice, and then both scored on Calvin Estrada’s ground single up the middle.

“I was hunting fastball,” Estrada said. “I was looking for something up in the zone.”

Trapasso said Davenport did “not smell it in the seventh. He had a two-run lead on the road in the seventh and he went out there and pitched tentative and hoping to get outs. He hits the first two guys, and puts them on base, and they come around and score. That’s a tough lesson to learn, but it’s a learning process.”

Trapasso said Davenport should be able to benefit from the experience in future starts.

“He’ll be able to look back on this and realize where things can go wrong,” Trapasso said. “And that’s not by smelling and attacking and understanding this might be my last inning, so it has to be my best inning. The errors were physical errors, and you feel bad for the guys. But it’s the same thing. They were made out of a little tentativeness.

“It’s a hard lesson to learn, but learn we must.”