Play Ball!

For many UH baseball fans, opening night won’t be until next Friday when the Rainbow Warriors play their first game at Les Murakami Stadium against New Mexico.

The reality for this UH team is the season begins Saturday night against UH-Hilo at Francis Wong Stadium.

Every player I talked with said opening day is opening day, and they seem to be treating this like any other opener. It’s definitely out of the norm for this program, which has opened at home against national powerhouse Oregon each of the last five seasons. Before that, it was Oregon State and before that, UC Irvine.

Our four-page preview will run in Saturday’s Star-Advertiser and I will link it here.

2016 Preview
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OVERVIEW
INFIELD
OUTFIELD
PICTHING

UH finally announced Friday evening that senior Kyle Von Ruden will start Game 2 on Sunday. Von Ruden was the expected No. 2 all spring but back spasms caused him to miss a little over a week. He threw two bullpen sessions in the last five days, though, and is good to go.

Hawaii is coming off a third consecutive losing season that did include a 12-12 mark in the Big West. UH returns its top five hitters and seven of nine starting position players, but the pitching staff had to be completely revamped for the second offseason in a row.

What are the expectations for this team?