The Hawaii baseball team made all the right moves in Saturday\u2019s 5-3 victory over Cal State Bakersfield at Hardt Field on the CSUB campus.<\/p>\n
From crafting a starting lineup of seven right-handed hitters and a switch hitter to rolling with right-handers Hekili Robello and Brody Martin-Grudzielanek, head coach Rich Hill found effective combinations as the Rainbow Warriors evened the three-game series at a win apiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the name of the game,\u201d Hill said in a telephone interview. \u201cFind a way to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robello allowed three runs in 62\u20443 innings. Martin-Grudzielanek, who made the move to closer a week ago, earned the seven-out save.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrody was great at the end,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n
With Roadrunners at the corners with two outs in the eighth, Hill made a mound visit with the intent of calming Martin-Grudzielanek. It turned into a brainstorming session.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe was the one who brought it up to me on the mound,\u201d Hill said. \u201cHe said, \u2018I think I can pick this guy off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin-Grudzielanek picked off pinch runner Taison Miller at first base to end the eighth inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that pickoff move was super athletic,\u201d Hill said. \u201cHe\u2019s a converted shortstop.\u201d<\/p>\n
In protecting a two-run lead in the ninth, Martin-Grudzielanek was instructed to go with the sizzle and not the breaking pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a high spin-rate fastball that\u2019s tough to see,\u201d Hill said. \u201cGuys have a hard time finding it. We just stuck with that and it ended up being good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin-Grudzielanek relinquished a leadoff single to open the CSUB ninth, then struck out the next three.<\/p>\n
The \u2019Bows entered having scored a run in back-to-back losses.<\/p>\n
\u2018You score one run in 18 innings and get shut out, everything\u2019s on the table,\u201d Hill said of not starting left-handed-hitting Draven Nushida, Christan Hoffman and Kody Watanabe. \u201cI wanted to see what that right-handed lineup looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hill praised CSUB\u2019s left-handed starter, Ethan Minaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought their guy did a good job, actually,\u201d Hill said. \u201cHe\u2019s got that really good changeup and a low batting average against righties. I wasn\u2019t super convicted about it once the game started. We were able to flip it to the lefties (later in the game).\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2019Bows scored the game\u2019s first run on Kamaehu Sanchez\u2019 RBI double.<\/p>\n
The \u2019Bows added two more in the fifth when Tate Shimao was plunked with the bases loaded and Evan Rolbiecki followed with a run-scoring fielder\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
The \u2019Bows added insurance runs in the seventh when Ben Ziegler-Namoa dashed home from third on a wild pitch and Shimao scored on Nushida\u2019s opposite-field single to left. Nushida had worked the count to 3-0 when he was given the green light to swing away. Nushida, who entered as a pinch hitter and then moved to left field, made a catch off a sprint to quell a Roadrunner threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a big play at the (left-field) line that won\u2019t show up in the box score,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n
Hill also said the \u2019Bows benefited from a pregame meeting \u201cwhere we talked about everything. We called it \u2018leave evidence.\u2019 That\u2019s the way the world works. You tie purpose to the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
CSUB head coach Jordon Banfield, who was ejected on Friday night for vehemently protesting a called strike, was not in a cheery mood following Saturday\u2019s game. Three Roadrunners were picked off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost the game, and it\u2019s a disappointing one,\u201d Banfield told ESPN+ after the game. \u201cIt\u2019s one I\u2019m not going to say we should have had, but certainly could have had.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hawaii baseball team made all the right moves in Saturday\u2019s 5-3 victory over Cal State Bakersfield at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-275446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}