Falcons’ Post-season Plan: Pitch Strong, Stop The Errors

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For the Kalani baseball team, having a stellar starting pitching staff has meant some inactivity for the relievers, but as the Falcons prepare for this week’s league playoffs, Kalani coach Shannon Hirai is hoping his up-and-coming staff can shake off the rust and return to early-season form.

“We’re going to need everyone,” Hirai said. “We have three quality guys (who are starters) in Micah, Dylan and Shamus. But the last four weeks our other guys haven’t thrown much, except in batting practice and to us. They had thrown a whole bunch in pre-season.”

Hirai was speaking of the talented pitching foursome of Tyler Matsuda, Kenn Kamoto, Wataru Noguchi and Troy Kashiwabara, whose impact could help Kalani in its quest to reach the Wally Yonamine Foundation State Baseball Tournament. To qualify, the Falcons (7-2 entering the weekend) will need to be among the top five finishers in the OIA Tournament this week. They were to have learned of their first-round opponent on Sunday when the OIA released its pairings. Kalani was to close out its regular season against McKinley last Saturday and anticipated being the East’s second seed, which would mean a first-round bye Wednesday.

“It will be real interesting - especially with the teams from the West being so close (among themselves),” Hirai said of the OIA Tournament. “It will come down

to whoever starts to peak and has a little luck. Every team has at least two really good (starting) pitchers.”

Regardless of their first-round opponent, pitching remains the Falcon’s forte. Kalani’s collective earned-run average stood at .89 heading into the weekend, while their opponents are hitting just .179 against them. After a season-opening loss to Roosevelt, the Falcons yielded only three runs over their next five games, with three shut-out victories during that stretch.

Those numbers are even more impressive considering Takahashi’s innings have been limited because of an injury that caused him to miss several starts.

“Micah has pitched outstanding,” Hirai said. “He hasn’t given up a run in 10 innings, and he has 15 strikeouts. We’re still bringing him along, but he should be ready for the playoffs.

“What has killed us has been our errors. We average three or four a game - throwing or fielding errors. And of the 19 runs we’ve given up, more than half have to be because of passed balls and wild pitches. We just have to play better defense.

“The kids practice hard,” he added with a laugh. “We just don’t always throw straight.”

Offensively, they hope to break out of a mini slump of late. In the 3-2 loss to Kailua, Hirai said they squandered scoring opportunities.

“We had all the chances in the world - we just couldn’t hit. We’re still at (a batting average of) .354 for the season, but I bet we’re under .200 for the last four games. We’ll just have to take more swings.”

Senior catcher Jason Lee has been one of the most consistent at the plate, according to Hirai.

“He’s been coming up with some clutch hits.”