Rainbows carrying
momentum to LaTech
The Hawaii baseball team takes a small dose of momentum with it today as the Rainbows travel by van from Houston to Ruston, La., for a three-game Western Athletic Conference series against Louisiana Tech.
The win over Rice Sunday provided the momentum, but that victory is history. The Bulldogs, who lost two of three at San Jose State last weekend, will try to create their own momentum in their WAC home-opening series that starts tomorrow night.
"You feel as a coach that every game out of the 56 is equally important, but the truth is league games are definitely more important," said UH coach Mike Trapasso. "We have to play better at Louisiana Tech than we have the previous two years.
"We have to just worry about ourselves and take care of business. If we do, then we'll have more wins than losses."
Despite the two Rice losses, the Rainbow pitching staff enjoyed its best three-game series of the season since Florida International was in town. However, FIU is no where near the caliber of team nationally ranked Rice is. Against the Owls, the UH pitchers allowed just eight earned runs in 25 innings (2.88 earned run average), walked just four batters, one intentionally and struck out 16.
"We used just four pitchers at Rice. It means we are throwing pretty well," said Trapasso.
The UH staff strikeout-to-walk ratio is better than 2-to-1 (174-70), an important factor in the 3.48 team ERA.
What the pitchers need this weekend is a little more offensive support. That may happen since the Louisiana Tech team ERA is 6.40.
The Rainbows' (15-9 overall, 1-2 WAC) top three hitters are Greg Kish (.371), Matt Inouye (.356 with a team-leading 22 runs batted in) and Rocky Russo (.333). Nate Thurber is second in RBIs with 18. All four have an on-base percentage of better than .460.
Louisiana Tech, under second-year head coach Wade Simoneaux, has experienced an erratic season. The Bulldogs (10-16, 1-2) have scored more than 10 runs in four games, but have surrendered more than 10 runs in eight games.
"You look at the stats and you know Louisiana Tech is a scrappy team. They get hammered one game, but the come back and win the next game," said Trapasso. "This is what I would expect because coach is a firey guy."
Stephen Winters (.354) is the leading hitter followed by Kyle Spangler (.329) and Jeff Walker (.320). Brandon Haygood, who is 13-for-17 in stolen-base attempts, Gil Laird and Spangler all have three home runs.
The Bulldogs will start Clayton Meyer (3-2, 3.11), Brody Love (1-3, 5.70) and Blake Burns (3-1, 4.97) on the mound tomorrow, Friday and Saturday, respectively.
Hawaii counters with right-handers Ricky Bauer (5-2, 2.52), Stephen Bryant (2-2, 2.27) and Clary Carlsen (4-3, 4.05).
The 'Bows will be without left fielder Jaziel Mendoza who was sent back to Honolulu for breaking a team rule.
Note: Trapasso on the Rainbows tour yesterday of the Johnson Space Center: "It was amazing. Ed Lu (the 'Bows' host) had three other astronauts with him so there were four of them giving us the tour. It was almost secondary to the questions we had for those astronauts."
