Rainbows welcome The Hawaii Rainbows entertain the UC Irvine Anteaters this week in the last nonconference baseball series prior to opening the Western Athletic Conference season next week against national power Rice.
revived Anteaters
UC Irvine's baseball program
is back after several years offBy Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.comThe UC Irvine administration reinstated baseball this season after a lengthy absence and backed the commitment by building a new stadium.
Despite having a freshman-dominated roster with some talented junior college transfers, Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso warns everyone, including his players, that the Anteaters are not a typical first-year team.
"They come from an area where there is the best high school talent. They have a great coach and they have had a year and a half to put this team together," said Trapasso. "Don't let this being the first year deceive you."
Matt Anderson, a freshman infielder, leads UCI with a .435 batting average (30-for-69). He is followed by Chris Miller, a junior catcher, who is batting .338 and has a team-leading 18 runs batted in.
Not that the UH head coach is overly worried about Irvine. He will be zeroing in on his own lineup in preparation for league play.
"I feel pretty comfortable with the lineup, now knowing what we'll do for the rest of the year. We'll tinker perhaps with the leadoff spot. We've spent 13 games evaluating guys and we pretty much know what we've got," said Trapasso.
He is considering leaving the left-hand hitting Kevin Gilbride in right field full time to see how that works out, even when the opposing pitcher is a lefty.
"Kevin battles and competes. When the bases are empty he hits .154, but with runners in scoring position, he's hitting .455 and with runners on base he's hitting .375. And, he's a perfect 2-for-2 with the bases loaded," Trapasso said.
"Kevin strikes out more than we would like, but he is so much better now than he was in the fall. He's a tough kid and that's why I like him."
Scooter Martines will stay in left because Trapasso thinks he's a better batter when he's playing in the field. There could be occasions when Martines will take a game as designated hitter to let Chad Boudon get some at-bats while playing left.
Danny Mocny will be the DH, but Trapasso wants to see the freshman move the ball more to advance or drive in runners.
"The one thing I'm disappointed in is that I haven't played Jason Carlson more often. He's improved from the fall and is going to be a very good college player," Trapasso said. "Jason works hard and I want to reward him. There may be days where we let Cortland (Wilson) DH and get Carlson in at shortstop."
Carlson, a freshman from Lompoc, Calif., has always been a shortstop. He was named first-team all-Northern League twice and was Lompoc's Most Valuable Player his senior year.
The leadoff position has seen four players this season. Arthur Guillen (eight games, .258 average, five walks, two hit by pitch) has seen the most action at the top of the batting order. Mocny (three games, .182, four walks), Derek Honma (two games, .400) and Lane Nogawa (one game, .200) also have taken a shot at getting something started.
This could be a lineup slot with a revolving door until one player gets hot.
The Rainbows will go with the starting rotation of Bryan Lee, Aaron Pribble and Chris George.
Pribble and George showed they have to be quicker to the plate in the Brigham Young series. They didn't do a good job of holding Cougar runners on first base.
"Pribble has to get a real move and George has to get a slide step," said Trapasso. "Teams like that will kill us, but we love to face pitchers like that.
"The pitching continues to keep us in games and that's all we can ask for. I like where we are defensively. We just need to be more consistent offensively. You look at our season and we're three or four hits away from being 10-3.
"We need the two-out hit and the hit with runners in scoring position. It's more a state of the mind, just move the ball. That's just competing."
Notes: Honma, a senior outfielder, is out indefinitely after fracturing a bone in his left wrist while swinging during the final game against Brigham Young. Normally, this would require surgery, but since this is Honma's last season, he will rest for a week or two, then see if he can get through the year. ... John Savage was given the task of putting the UCI baseball program together after spending 1996 through 2000 as the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Southern California. At USC, he coached the Pac-10 Pitchers of the Year three consecutive seasons (Seth Etherton, Barry Zito and Rik Currier). Savage assisted Mike Gillespie, who headed the 1998 USA National Team that opened its summer series with two games against Japan at Rainbow Stadium.
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