Hawaii-Washington State baseball: Game 3
Three takeaways from Hawaii baseball’s 4-3 victory over Washington State:
> Jeremy Wu-Yelland is tough and athletic. He pitched on Friday, then came back to get the final four outs tonight. Wu-Yelland mixed his pitches — sliders against lefties, change-ups against righties. He also made the play of the game when he fielded Collin Montez‘s drag bunt and out-raced him to first. “He could have cartwheeled to first,” first baseman Alex Baeza said of Wu-Yelland’s athleticism.
> Tyler Best was recruited as a second baseman, but played right field out of necessity last season. He played left this year and, with Scotty Scott out tonight, took over Scott’s spot in right field and at the top of the order. Best had two hits and scored two runs.
> The ‘Bows also were able to navigate through pressure situations. “Just getting those guys in situations, leverage-pressure situations, and then having them succeed, and then getting into another pressure situation and going to the next guy … that was good,” coach Mike Trapasso said. The ‘Bows didn’t even have to use Vince Reilly.
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Quick take: If you’re going to cast a pitcher, Cade Smith fits the look. He’s tall, has three great pitches, is pre-med smart and … but sometimes he’s gets too fine. The result is an outing in which he was in trouble in three of four innings. He exited with the bases loaded in the fourth, and Buddie Pindel held the damages to just one run charged to Smith.
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Quick take:
In the first two innings, Cade Smith‘s fastball is popping — 93 or 94 mph? He struck out a batter who had not struck out in 20 previous at bats to end the first. Then with runners in scoring position with one out, he struck out the next two batters.
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It’s the third game of this four-game series. Of note:
> The ‘Bows will be without outfielder Scotty Scott, who is a being evaluated after being beaned on the right ear flap last night and hitting the wall on Thursday. Tyler Best will bat leadoff and play right field.
> Daylen Calicdan will make his second start in left field.
> It’s Cade Smith for his second start of the season. Smith has pitched eight innings this season, allowing five runs and striking out six.
> Dallas Duarte gets the start at catcher tonight.
I’ll say this, Stephen. One of the things I find impressive so far with this team is that they’re doing anything and everything they can to pull out miracles. This team has struggled to close out against Wazzu for the 2nd time in a row after they started to make a late rally. They led early, and right in the midst of all that, Wazzu continues to play aggressively and kept pressuring Hawaii late.
Hawaii’s pitching gave up 29 hits so far in the series, including 21 in the two Hawaii wins, and somehow manages to pull through in convincing fashion having limited WSU to only 5 runs on that occasion.
Three things that stand out to me in this series is:
1) Hawaii has made BIG plays when they needed it the most. Especially the pitching, when they needed to get out of trouble, they made a crucial play.
2) Wazzu left players on base 21 times after only having left 5 in the series opener. Hawaii has only left 8 on base after winning the two games following the opener where they only left men on base 6 times.
3) Wazzu tried to gamble the dice by allowing A. J. Block to pitch the full game, didn’t work at all, as Hawaii used a 4-pitcher symphony to minimize any and ALL damage Wazzu could give them.
But as a bonus, Jeremy gets his first save for the season. Reilly, although, I thought, would be a sure shoe-in because he has two of the team’s saves, and has been able to make a strong case for being the best closer for the team. Maybe Trap wanted to see some redemption out of Jeremy to give him a second chance after fumbling the lead in the 8th last night. I dunno…what are some of your thoughts about this series, Stephen? Think this team might have something going on for 2020?
Matt
Nice breakdown of the series so far. Thanks for the insight. Wu-Yelland and Smith should be more reliable I think. Still early though. Yes, hoping Stephen can give a closer (insider) perception of this team as a whole. Especially with the unfamiliar names and what they will contribute. Maybe going be good 2020? Hard to tell so far.
Didn’t see the last two games but how did the Bows handle Montez? In the first game he looked like a beast, two swings, two homers I think. Did they pitch to him or just gave him junk, intention walks? Few players ever did what he did in LM Stadium.