[ RAINBOW BASEBALL ]
Hawaii’s Nathan Thurber beat the throw home to score in the bottom of the fifth inning of last night’s loss to Fresno State.
Hawaii drops series
opener to Fresno St.Garza stifles the Rainbows again,
while Hawaii fails to capitalize
on its opportunities
Fresno State demonstrated why it leads the Western Athletic Conference in batting by collecting 15 hits off three Hawaii pitchers last night at Murakami Stadium.
The Bulldogs broke a 2-2 tie with a six-hit, four-run sixth inning to back the pitching of Matt Garza and win the first of a three-game WAC series 7-2 before 1,045 fans.
Garza, who pitched a four-hit, nine-inning shutout against UH in Fresno, Calif., last month, allowed six hits in seven innings, but made the right pitches to escape trouble in the second, fourth and sixth innings.
When Matt Inouye opened the eighth with a double, Garza left in favor of Eddie Romero.
Jaziel Mendoza's line drive to left-center field on the fourth pitch by Romero was caught by a diving DeAndre Miller, who doubled Inouye off second, killing any potential rally.
Although the Rainbows (29-18, 12-10 WAC) turned three double plays, they did not execute their short offensive game in the early innings and had baserunning blunders.
"This was our worst game of the year. I don't know if we were uptight or tired, but we did not execute the whole game. We had stupid baserunning mistakes and couldn't score runners from third with less than two outs. We left too many pitches up and they smoked us," said UH coach Mike Trapasso.
"Give Garza some credit. He was tough early. But if we are to reach our goals, then we have to play the way we did to get here, not like we played tonight."
The Bulldogs (23-28, 11-11) jumped on UH starter Ricky Bauer with four hits and two runs in the second inning when the junior right-hander had difficulty getting first- and second-pitch strikes.
David Gomez singled to right to open the inning. Brandon Marcelli and Christian Vitters each took the ball the opposite way with singles to right and left, respectively, loading the bases. Bauer got the first out when Brandon Esparza's bouncer to first resulted in a force at home.
But Bauer fell behind on the count to Nick Moresi 3-0 and he singled to right on the next pitch, also going the opposite way to score two teammates.
Hawaii missed a chance to get the runs back in the bottom of the inning when Isaac Omura singled to center and Greg Kish walked to start the inning. The Bulldogs got a forceout at third on Schafer Magana's sacrifice-bunt attempt, but Garza's first pitch to Nate Thurber was wild, putting runners at second and third with one out.
The sophomore right-hander kept UH off the board by fanning Thurber and retiring Josh Green on a weak, first-pitch pop to short.
The 'Bows wasted a leadoff single by Brian Finegan in the third when the sacrifice-bunt attempt failed and Omura's leadoff double in the fourth, courtesy of two excellent FSU defensive plays.
Shortstop Chris Patrick went high in the air to grab Kish's soft liner headed toward center field and right fielder Moresi made a diving catch of Magana's hit bid and doubled Omura off second to end the inning.
Thurber walked to begin the fifth and the 'Bows finally took advantage of getting the leadoff batter on base. Thurber took second on a wild pitch and scored on Finegan's single to left, ending 13 1/3 innings of shutout ball by Garza against UH this season.
Finegan stole second, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on Andrew Sansaver's sacrifice fly to left, knotting the score at 2.
The tie did not last long. Richie Robnett extended his hitting streak to 23 consecutive games with a one-out double into the right-field corner. Gomez followed with a run-scoring double to the same spot.
Marcelli then hit a fly to shallow right that bounced over Kish for an RBI triple. Vitters followed with a line single to left-center to make the score 5-2. When Esparza lined the first pitch to right, that ended Bauer's night on the mound.
Guy McDowell relieved Bauer. A wild pitch by the new pitcher allowed both runners to move up a base. Moresi brought Vitters home with the inning's fourth run on a seeing-eye single through a drawn in infield.
Mendoza singled to start the bottom of the sixth and took third on Kish's hit-and-run single to right. Kish took second on a wild pitch, but Garza got Magana to pop up foul to the second baseman and Thurber to ground out to second.
That made six times UH batters had a chance to produce a key hit, but failed.
Even singles by Kish and Magana to start the ninth produced zero runs.
The teams play today at 6:35 p.m. and finish the series tomorrow with a 1:05 p.m. start time.
WAC standings
Conference All games W L Pct. GB W L Pct. Rice 17 3 .850 -- 35 9 .795 Nevada 12 9 .571 5 1/2 28 22 .560 Hawaii 12 10 .545 6 29 18 .617 Fresno St. 11 11 .500 7 23 28 .451 San Jose St. 8 16 .333 11 20 28 .418 LaTech 6 17 .261 12 1/2 15 35 .300 San Jose State has one non-conference tie.
Thursday
Fresno St. 7, Hawaii 2
Today
San Jose St. at Louisiana Tech
Nevada at Rice
Fresno St. at Hawaii, 6:35 p.m.
Fresno State 7, Hawaii 2
FSU AB R H BI Hawaii AB R H BI Haag 2b 5 1 1 0 Finegan ss 5 1 2 1 Patrick ss 4 0 1 0 Sansaver 1b 3 0 0 1 Robnett cf 5 1 2 1 Inouye c 4 0 1 0 Gomez dh 4 1 3 1 Mendoza lf 4 0 1 0 Shnnn pr/dh 0 0 0 0 Omura 2b 4 0 2 0 Marcelli c 5 2 3 1 Kish rf 3 0 2 0 Vitters 3b 4 2 2 1 Magana 3b 4 0 1 0 Esparza 1b 3 0 1 0 Thurber dh 3 1 0 0 Moresi rf 3 0 2 3 Green cf 4 0 0 0 Miller lf 3 0 0 0 Totals 36 7 15 7 Totals 34 2 9 2 FSU 020 004 001 -- 7 15 1 Hawaii 000 020 000 -- 2 9 0 E--Haag. DP--FSU 2, Hawaii 3. LOB--FSU 7, Hawaii 8. 2B--Robnett, Gomez, Inouye, Omura. 3B--Marcelli. SH--Moresi. SF--Sansaver. SB--Finegan.
FSU IP H R ER BB SO Garza (W, 5-2) 7.0 7 2 1 2 4 Romero 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 Scott 1.0 2 0 0 0 1 Hawaii IP H R ER BB SO Bauer (L, 8-3) 5.1 11 6 6 0 0 McDowell 3.0 3 1 1 1 1 Mead 0.1 1 0 0 2 0 Withers 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 WP--Garza 3, McDowell 3. HBP--by Bauer (Esparza). PB--Marcelli. Umpires--Jim Garman (home), Jim LeBeau (first), Darryl Mason (third).
T--3:11. A--1,045.
