HONOLULU — It was, as Itsuki Takemoto put it, “pretty good.”
The sophomore from Japan was succinct to sum up a night like few others at Les Murakami Stadium as he put on a two-way clinic to guide the Hawaii baseball team to a 7-2 win over UC Davis on Saturday night.
“We won. That’s good,” Takemoto said, smiling and shrugging.
A sellout crowd of 3,157 (season-high 4,589 tickets issued) turned out for the rare Saturday Big West series opener and Takemoto did not disappoint in his second week in a row at the head of the rotation. UH (15-5, 4-3 Big West) took its third straight league game coming off a big series win over then-No. 15 UC Santa Barbara last weekend.
[Note: See below for more photos of Hawaii-UC Davis baseball.]
Takemoto (2-3) struck out seven and walked none in giving up four hits and two hit batsmen in seven innings. The only real damage was a two-run homer by UCD’s own two-way performer Braydon Wooldridge in the fourth inning. UH’s right-hander recovered and finished at 104 pitches, the most by a UH thrower this season.
That alone would’ve been worthy of a spot in front of the rest of the other Rainbow Warriors as they did their customary postgame shaka wave to the crowd — an honor he reluctantly accepted as teammates shoved him forward.
Oh — he was batting cleanup, too. He was 1-for-2 with two walks, and his two-run double in the fifth gave UH some valuable breathing room.
Coach Rich Hill called the performance “Shohei-esque.”
“Hitting a two-strike, two-run double, seven strikeouts, no walks, getting the win, throwing over 100 pitches, drawing a couple walks, that's just a great night, and the fans came out in force,” Hill said. “That's a sellout crowd, and I think a lot of that has to do with Itsuki.”
Takemoto, whose all-around skills were mentioned frequently when he joined the program in fall 2023, had not made a plate appearance in any of the previous five games he pitched this season, and a double-duty day did not occur until mid-May of his freshman season. But he was stellar in the Cape Cod League over the summer, and Hill said Saturday he sensed the time was right to put Takemoto, who bats left, in the middle of the order to match up with Aggies starter Noel Valdez (2-2).
(Valdez) has a good changeup, and that's given a few of our hitters down in the order a little bit of problem throughout the years,” Hill said. “I thought that he could run into a changeup, but turns out he ran into a fastball.”
Takemoto, who is batting .375 with an ERA of 3.09, said Hill told him on Friday that he’d be getting the two-way nod.
“‘Coach, I'm ready. Yeah, yeah, thank you,’” Takemoto said of his reaction. “That's it.”
UH got a huge spiritual lift as well as senior Jordan Donahue returned from a one-month absence from a right hand injury he suffered swinging a bat in the season opener against Marshall.
“The timetable was four to six weeks. I got cleared on Thursday, but It all depended on how practice went on Friday during BP and all that,” Donahue said. “And luckily, it felt good, so we gave it a go.”
He reclaimed his starting shortstop position and batted eighth, his hand heavily wrapped to protect where he underwent surgery on his lower palm. He began rehab the day after his operation and worked to regain his grip strength.
Sophomore Elijah Ickes, who’d filled in for Donahue at short, shifted back to third base. Donahue lauded Ickes for his play over the last month.
“He did an unreal job,” Donahue said. “I mean, his normal position is shortstop and he's playing third base out of position, and I thought he did a great job over there, and held it down over there.”
Donahue started a 6-4-3 double play in the first inning to erase a leadoff single by Tyler Howard.
“That was a nice welcome back, for sure, awesome to just play in front of these fans and with my teammates again,” Donahue said.
Freddy Rodriguez worked the last two innings with only a walk allowed, striking out the side in the ninth and fanning four overall. Hill said that was important so as to preserve UH’s other top reliever, Isaiah Magdaleno, for either the Sunday or Monday matchups with the Aggies.
UCD (11-8, 3-1) took its first league loss after a convincing sweep of UC Riverside — a team that took two of three from UH — last week. UH jumped on the visitors quickly with a bases-clearing triple by Jared Quandt in the first; the senior missed out on a grand slam by only about a foot off the right-center wall.
Matthew Miura was 4-for-4 with a double to raise his batting average to .329. Ben Zeigler-Namoa drove in runs in the fifth and seventh with a single and a sacrifice fly.
Game 2 is set for 1:05 p.m. Sunday.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.