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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Rainbows need a
miracle on the roadTHE Rainbows end this would-be historical baseball season on a seven-game road swing these next two weeks, with conventional wisdom (or, at least, conventional wishful thinking) having it that UH must win at least six of them to get into NCAA postseason play.
So how, UH coach Mike Trapasso was asked yesterday, were the 'Bows going to pull this off?
"Prayer," Trapasso said simply. "Lots of prayer."
It was a joke, but he was serious, too.
It's a perfect answer. Because it would take a miracle.
Not to say that the Rainbows couldn't do it. But that if they did, it would be a feat talked about in Rainbow baseball lore for, well ... forever.
Six of your last seven games, on the road, for the first postseason trip in 11 years?
That would be a sports miracle of the very best kind.
Of course, even then ...
"I don't have any idea really if there is a magic number," Trapasso said. "I think the magic number in any college baseball program for postseason play is 40 wins. We don't have a chance for that."
So all they can do now is play hard. And pray.
It's been a great ride this season, and a rough one. They've played most of the year without one player or another, or several, thanks to injury. The lumps kept coming.
The final straw for this final stretch was losing catcher Creighton Kahoali'i, who tore his PCL sliding into third with a triple in a win over No. 3 Rice.
"I didn't know there was a PCL," Trapasso said.
And yet, except for this last soggy weekend against Fresno State, the Rainbows somehow kept fighting, kept winning.
But now comes the toughest test yet, seven games on the road. They need to be the old Giants catching the old Dodgers, Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World.
They need a miracle.
Six of seven, on the road, to end the season, everything on the line? That's a miracle in baseball, for any team at any time. Especially with three in the thin air at Nevada, where warning track pop ups turn into home runs for the home team.
"We're going to have to get the pitching we've been getting really all this year until this (past) weekend," Trapasso said.
Maybe getting rained out Saturday against Fresno State will snap UH out of its weekend cloud. Maybe it's possible to win six. Maybe ...
"I don't know how realistic that is," Trapasso said. "But I do know it is realistic to expect our guys to go out and play the last seven games one game at a time, and the way they have played over the last six or eight weeks, and give us a shot."
Yes, things like this almost never happen. But that is what makes them so wonderful when they do. Maybe these Rainbows have it in them.
It would take a miracle. The kind they'd talk about forever.
Better start praying now.
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Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com