Thursday, February 7, 2002
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Hawaii continue its "work-in-progress" baseball season this weekend with a three-game series against Cal State Sacramento. UH greets unknown
in Sacramento StateBy Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.com"We hope we're a work in progress and we hope people realize it," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said.
This is the fifth consecutive year CSUS coach John Smith has brought his Hornets here for an early-season visit. Like the Rainbows, the Hornets have a number of experienced players with five juniors and 10 seniors on the roster.
"I'm going into this situation probably with more of an uneasy feeling than going against Florida State," Trapasso said. Having coached against Florida State for 10 years, we knew exactly what we were dealing with. I know absolutely nothing about Sacramento State. I know John Smith works hard and is a good coach. They are coming in here for their opening series so they will be fired up.
"From our standpoint, we have to play with the exact same level of passion and intensity we did last weekend. If we don't, we will get beat. Our team is not a team that can go out there and play without passion and expect to win. It won't happen."
Trapasso has added left-hander Aaron Pribble to the starting rotation. He will pitch Saturday's game. Bryan Lee gets the starting assignment tomorrow with Ricky Bauer scheduled to start Sunday's series finale.
"Aaron threw well twice (against FSU). He does everything we ask. He's a three-pitch guy and a senior. Obviously, it's about consistency and he's earned the start," Trapasso said.
The Hawaii hitters will continue to work on the same approach at the plate the coaches have been emphasizing since the first day of practice. Their job is to recognize the off-speed pitch and be disciplined enough to not swing at such a pitch early in the count.
"With the majority of college baseball pitching staffs, if you recognize the off-speed pitch early in the count, it's going to be a ball about 70 percent of the time," said Trapasso. "Now you're in a great fastball count. You look for that one fastball over the plate because in college baseball you get an average of one per at bat. If it comes on the first pitch or the sixth pitch, you've got to be able to do something with it."
The Rainbows hit .254 as a team against FSU, but Trapasso had told his players the Seminoles were the one team they would play this season that would make the approach backfire because the FSU pitchers were so adept at throwing breaking pitches for strikes.
Trapasso used basically the same starting lineup for the four games. The exceptions were Chad Boudon and Derek Honma sharing left field and Tim Montgomery and Kevin Gilbride doing the same in right field.
"We will continue to do that. Just seeing Kevin Gilbride play for a game showed us we need to find a way to try and involve him as much as we can because he adds a little fire and the passion we want," Trapasso said.
Brian Bock caught most of the innings against Florida State. Trapasso wants to get catcher Grady Symonds more playing time.
"My mistake was not getting Brian out of there in the fourth or fifth inning Sunday because Grady needs the work to get better," Trapasso said.
Florida State coach Mike Martin told Trapasso, "I don't know if you realize what you have. You guys are good. The way you play defense, some of the pitching you guys showed and I will guarantee you we will not see a team that plays harder or scrappier the rest of the year."
Trapasso invited Martin to repeat his comments to the Rainbows after Sunday's game and the FSU coach did just that.
"What a great compliment for our kids coming from one of the great coaches in college baseball," Trapasso said.
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