By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

"We have more depth than last year, particularly on the mound. I will be disappointed if this team does not play in the postseason."

— UH baseball coach Mike Trapasso, in Baseball America, Feb. 13, 2005.

Last season the University of Hawai'i-Manoa baseball team faded down the stretch in part because it didn't have enough depth.

This season you wonder if it sometimes had too much for its own good.

Too many players and too many issues leading to the wrong type of team chemistry.

The underachieving Rainbows are playing just .500 ball (25-25 overall and 12-12 in the Western Athletic Conference) and only a walk-on-water miracle finish can put them in the postseason.

Trailing first-place Rice by four games with six — all at least 3,900 miles from home — remaining, the postseason hopes pretty much expired on these Rainbows when Fresno State took two of three games over the weekend.

Now, with a series each at Rice and Louisiana Tech remaining, the only question left to be answered is will they finish with a winning record?

But after going from 16-40 in 2002 to 30 victories in 2003 and, then, 31 wins last year, even a winning season wouldn't be all that much to write home about this year. Not when the avowed mission since January has been to get back to the postseason after an 11-year absence. Not when the expectation, from Manoa and beyond, was the NCAA Tournament.

If you've seen UH, you know it isn't so much an issue of talent that will keep them out of the postseason. Not when they had enough to sweep No. 17 Florida State and go 7-4 against nationally ranked opponents.

This is a team that hasn't lacked for ability as much as it has failed Chemistry 101. It is a team that, 50 games into the season, still hasn't found itself or a rhythm. Which is why, you suspect, the Who Knows 'Bows' only consistency has been a baffling inconsistency from one game to the next, if not sometimes one inning to the next.

Of course finding and accepting roles isn't easy when there are as many players, 41, as UH started with this year. Or as much roster turnover as they have undergone in the past couple years. Players have come and gone in large numbers, which isn't the way to build a foundation of consistency.

But back to this year, where it has been an unwieldy number, as UH has learned the hard way.

"We definitely had too many players," Trapasso admits.

Even after that got pared down to 35 or so by red-shirting and defections, and playing time was at a premium, there were still too many egos to contend with.

Curiously, the large numbers that were to have been a saving grace this season became a curse of sorts. The more the merrier? Not at UH and not this year.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.