Nevada baseball looks to rebound

RENO " Never let it be said that Gary Powers is not a patient man.

"We knew going into this season that it wouldn't be easy with our schedule," the Nevada Wolf Pack baseball coach said. "We knew it would be a tough task. You just have to stay the course."

The course has been filled with bumps, potholes and dangerous road hazards. It has all added up to a 4-8 record with the Oregon Ducks coming to Peccole Park for the start of a four-game series beginning today at 1 p.m.

"We'll be OK," catcher Travis Simas said. "We'll get it turned around."

The 4-8 start is nothing new. The Pack, in fact, has been 4-8 after its first dozen games in four of its last seven seasons. The difference this year has been the lack of offense.

Only one other Wolf Pack team in Powers' 27 seasons as head coach has scored fewer runs over the first 12 games than this year's team. This year's team has scored just 41 runs, five more than the 1985 team. No other Pack team during the Powers era has scored fewer than 51 runs (2006) during its first 12 games.

"This team will hit," first baseman Shaun Kort said recently. "We have too many good hitters. It's just a matter of going out there and not trying to do too much."

The Wolf Pack is last in the Western Athletic Conference in hitting (.228), runs scored (41), runs batted in (38), on-base percentage (.300), slugging percentage (.339) and walks (30). History tells us, however, that the slump won't last forever.

Matt Bowman, a career .347 hitter coming into this season, is hitting just .200. Kort, who hit .358 over his first two seasons, is at .227.

"We have a lot of guys who want to win so badly, they are trying to do too much," Powers said.

Bowman and Kort aren't the only ones who are struggling. Of the nine hitters who returned from last year's team, just three are hitting above their career averages going into this year. Aaron Henry, who was just 2-for-8 a year ago for a .250 average, is hitting .364 (4-for-11), Simas is hitting .276 after hitting just .167 in 2008 and Nick Leid is at .286 (4-for-14) after hitting .282 a year ago.

"The last thing you want to do is change the lineup," Powers said. "You have to let those guys work things through and get their feet under them. We all know that those guys will come around."

Powers, whose team has won two of its last three games, is seeing steps in the right direction.

"Things are getting better even though you might not be seeing the improvement in big strides," Powers said. "At least now we're getting into good hitting situations. At the start of the year we weren't even getting in good situations. We just haven't been able to take advantage of those situations lately.

"As time goes on, hopefully, we'll respond more consistently to the opportunities we get. Somewhere along the line we'll figure it out and get better offensively."

Oregon is playing its first baseball season in 28 years this year. The Ducks, under former Cal State Fullerton head coach George Horton, are 6-6 and will take a three-game winning streak into this weekend's series.

The Pack, which won at UC Davis, 2-1, on Tuesday, is in the middle of a grueling stretch that will see them play eight games in 10 days. The Pack has had just five practice days since opening the season Feb. 20 in Arizona.

"We've played so many games in such a short period of time," Powers said. "That's what has hurt us more than anything so far. It's been a learning process but we haven't been able to take the lessons we've learned on the field during games to the practice field."

All four games in the Oregon series will begin at 1 p.m.