Checking in with UW Baseball coach Eddie Smith ahead of teams two final series of the regular season
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA - Coming off a dramatic series win over the Big Ten leading Iowa Hawkeyes, the University of Washington baseball team is rolling along just fine in head coach Eddie Smith’s first campaign at the helm. The “Diamond Dawgs” have won six series now in Big Ten conference play and have won their eighth-straight Big Ten series opener, staying perfect in Friday conference matchups as they look to make a statement here in the first season in a new conference. Sitting at fifth in the conference standings is a bit different from where they were predicted to be before the season began, as D1 Baseball slated them to finish dead last in the Big Ten in their conference season preview. Smith was brought in to help Washington return to the sort of consistent success that the program saw from 2014-2018 when they reached the NCAA Tournament three times in that span, and if his tenure at Utah Valley is any indication of the sort of turnaround that the Huskies will see, the purple and gold may be reigning once again soon.
Ahead of the teams final road trip of the regular season, as they’ll duel an Oregon Ducks team that currently ranks fifth in the nation, coach Smith took time to chat about the programs season in his first year, building a team in the modern collegiate landscape, Julio Rodríguez’s visists with the Huskies, and more.
Game gallery from the currently suspended game between the Warner Pacific Knights and our Washington Husky baseball team on May 5th, 2025 at Husky ballpark. (Photos by Dylan Nguyen for Circling Seattle Sports)
Working to build up Washington
Building a program in any collegiate sport now is somewhat unique given the landscape of college sports, as NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) has changed the game in terms of recruiting and where both athletes and coaches want to spend their time at University. Smith is no stranger to how odd things are in the current state of where the NCAA is, having come from Utah Valley to a Washington program that’s doing it’s best to compete at a high level against their new opponents in the Big Ten Conference. Working through getting a roster fielded for the 2025 season saw difficulties and Oregon State and a massive offer pulled Aiva Arquette away, and he may end up being a player taken high in the upcoming MLB draft with some mocks having him taken by the Seattle Mariners with their high pick this year. Some players have been here for four years and seen three different head coaches, others just got in this past summer, and so with that sort of movement it’s a challenge to get a group to gel together and focus on a goal as one. While there have been challenges this season, Smith has liked what he’s seen from his group in both results and performance, sharing how pleased he is with how much they’ve bought in to what the coaching staff has asked of them.
“I think they’ve come together and they pull for each other... The energy that they’ve played with has been what we’ve been asking out of them and been demanding out of them since we started in September. I think that’s what’s so important to me. With this first season, we’ve probably had some results that maybe have surpassed some expectations from the outside, that’s fine. I really tried to be very culture, foundational, process oriented, always, but especially in season one, trying to build a base.”
A look at the team and their season so far
The Washington offense, despite losing a top collegiate player in Aiva Arquette after he transferred to Oregon State, has seen some strong performances from names like Casen Taggart, Braeden Terry, and Sam DeCarlo. While those names and a few more have played their role in the success that the Huskies have seen so far this season, no other hitter has the numbers that AJ Guerrero has on the 2025 campaign for the purple and gold. Last season, Guerrero was the programs second best hitter statistically behind Arquette, and AJ has picked up from that 2024 year where he earned a second All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention in as many seasons. With his success and how much of a driver he’s been for the Husky offense, I wanted to get coach Smith’s thoughts on the performance that he’s put together at this point in the year. Guerrero leads Washington in hits, runs, doubles, homers, RBI, total bases, and slugging percentage while ranking second in batting average, on base percentage, and walks. Smith adds that while his numbers are great on paper, how Guerrero can impact a game on even a “down” night is so critical to what the Huskies have accomplished this season. On nights where maybe he doesn’t see the ball well, Smith credits Guerrero for still being able to have collected a key hit or walk at some point in that game to impact the final result.
“When he has been healthy, we’ve been a different lineup. When he is healthy, he gives us really, really good at bat every single time he’s at the plate and I think that’s such a great thing for some of our other hitters to see also. He’s a pro at that every single time that he’s in the box. The things that he does and the way that he finds ways to work counts and get his barrel to the ball, it’s phenomenal.”
On the other side of things, the Husky pitching has been critical for this Washington group in a similar sense to the Major League team that plays just a few miles away from Husky ballpark. Husky pitchers may not be putting up historic numbers like the Mariners rotation did last season, but coach Smith credits his teams arms for being the heart and soul of this group. Washington’s pitching as a whole ranks top five in the conference when it comes to ERA, shutouts, runs allowed, home runs against, and strikeouts looking while just outside of that top five in several other categories including WHIP (Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched). With the importance of pitching and especially so in this region of the country, Smith highlighted his staff as the “bright and shining” point of the team and it’s understandable given their conference rankings.
“Any success that we’ve had can be linked directly to the pitching staff. When we got here, it was something that I believe, especially at this place, because we’re at sea level, because the wind blows in so often, and Husky ballpark is a place that’s really hard to hit in, I really made it a point that we were going to win by suffocating teams with great pitching and great defense, and it’s a message that our players have heard since day one. That’s a priority for us.”
A big credit that Smith gave was to the programs pitching coach, Connor Lambert. Lambert is in his first season at Washington, joining Eddie Smith as he took over with the Huskies this past offseason, and coming from the University of Portland where he held the same title of pitching coach for the past seven seasons. When you look at Lambert’s tenure with the Portland Pilots, it’s obvious why coach Smith was so keen on bringing him to Washington to begin his tenure in the purple and gold: 18 Pilot pitchers earned All-WCC honors, including the only two WCC Pitcher of the Year honorees in program history in Brett Gillis and Carter Gaston and he developed six MLB draft picks at Portland, including Tate Budnick (2018, Milwaukee Brewers), Brett Gillis (2022, Houston Astros), Caleb Franzen (2022, Colorado Rockies), Nick Stuhr (2024, Oakland Athletics), Nick Brink (2024, Miami Marlins) and Joey Gartrell (2024, Boston Red Sox). Smith raved about the job that Lambert has done not only to get his pitching staff right so that they could be a vital part of this program, but in his development of pitchers so that they can take their game to the next level including a pitcher that both Smith and myself have a personal tie to.
“We’ve got the best pitching coach in the country. We played Portland eight times over the course of three years when I was at Utah Valley, and I serve as the team’s hitting coach: it was miserable preparing for them and playing against Portland, it was suffocating. I’m just glad he’s in our uniform now.”
When talking about coach Lambert and the work that he’s done with the Washington pitching staff to help in their development, Eddie Smith mentioned two names primarily: starter Max Banks, and reliever Isaac Yeager. Banks has led the way for the Huskies this season, boasting a 6-2 win-loss record with a 1.13 WHIP through ten starts and 56.2 innings pitched, making a big leap from his 2024 campaign where he only made six appearances and threw 18 innings during his third year at Chapman University. Yeager has led the way for Washington in his own right, posting a team leading 20 appearances on the season so far as he’s been crucial for the Huskies in the bullpen. His team leading six saves comes with him ranking second on the roster in strikeouts, as the 6’6” right hander from Bishop Blanchet Highschool here in Seattle has gotten Washington out of some big jams late in ball games. Smith shared that he had tried to recruit Yeager out of Blanchet to Utah State when he was the head coach there, putting in a big push to try and bring the big hurler out then but shared a good laugh when mentioning that it was probably for the best that Isaac chose Washington, with them now crossing paths again here for this season.
While acknowledging the key pieces that have helped the program win games this season, a reality in sports is that injuries can greatly affect what a team is trying to do in their season. That’s been the case at times for Washington this year, as coach Smith mentioned that the program had to cancel a whole week of their fall practice sessions due to a host of injuries. In their preseason, the Huskies could not scrimmage properly unless they put nine players in the field and only three of them into a hitting group, and that’s how Washington had to go about their scrimmages because of the injuries that they were dealing with at the time. Early into the season, the Huskies played 16 of their first 21 games without some combination of Malakhi Knight, AJ Guerrero, and Casen Taggart due to injuries, as Washington went 4-12 in those games. Since that stretched without three key players in some way shape or form, the Huskies have gone 23-10, which is on pace for a regional like record but obviously things haven’t shaken out that way. If Washington is able to win their next two series on the schedule in Oregon and against USC, the committee should shine on them considering the turnaround they’ve made this season to battle through the injuries that they’ve faced.
In the nonconference game against Warner Pacific, the Husky starting lineup may have seemed light because of the competition they were up against and appearing as though Washington was resting players when the reality is that four core players for the program are dealing with injuries. Smith detailed that center fielder Malakhi Knight, shortstop Sam DeCarlo, and left fielder AJ Guerrero all missed the game due to injuries while outfielder Braeden Terry remains out (having last played April 28th against UIC) with an ailment. While missing any of them isn’t ideal, Smith mentioned that those players missing time presents opportunities for the rest of the roster to step up and fill in, which he saw in the game against Warner Pacific. Because of some performances during that game, Smith said that a few players who weren’t previously going to make the trip to the Oregon series will now join the team for it to try and help a Husky team remains banged up.
“There are some guys who are going to travel to Eugene now because of how they performed last night, and they’ve earned that. That’s a big deal, you never know when those opportunities come up. We’ve had plenty of situations this year already where guys have had to go in and play roles where guys went down because of injury. We have to have somebody step up.”
Discussing the nonconference games
The nonconference games that Washington has played this year have drawn plenty of criticism and anger from fans of the Huskies, especially the March 18th loss to Pacific Lutheran and the currently suspended contest against Warner Pacific just a few days ago on May 5th. The Pacific Lutheran defeat in particular, which came a day before Washington hammered them by a final score of 12-0 in a game that was called in the seventh inning, saw the Huskies become the center of mockery given their defeat to a Lutes program that’s in the NCAA’s Division III. In the currently suspended Warner Pacific contest, a banged up Washington team had to climb their way back from an early deficit as their effort to comeback saw them within a run before the game had to be halted in the sixth inning due to a light malfunction at Husky ballpark. Fans could be seen online asking ‘Why are you playing these games that don’t matter?’ and questions of that nature. While it isn’t always the best to use what angry folks on the internet are saying as questions, I did want to get the perspective from coach Smith on why they were playing these games and why they were playing certain teams in particular.
“A challenge geographically for us is like that this isn’t like a video game. We don’t just magically appear in, you know, Lubbock, Texas, to be able to play Texas Tech on a Tuesday. We’ve got class, budgets, travel, and all these other things. The opportunities and options for us of who to play are really limited here regionally.”
He gave an intriguing answer to the question with some great insight into why he’s approaching the schedule the way that he is, and has to. First and foremost, coach Smith states that he’s a believer in using the 56 games that the NCAA allots them as a team to play, but it’s a challenge to get all sorts of different competition due to where the Huskies are located. While wanting to play other programs, one that Smith mentioned jokingly when saying it’s not like a video game where you can just teleport to play is Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, things such as budget and travel do get in the way of wanting to potentially diversify the opponents that Washington is playing. That means the options and opportunities that the Huskies get to be able to play outside of their conference are limited because of the region that the program is in.
Another factor in who Washington plays in their nonconference games is how their RPI (Rating Percentage Index) will be affected, depending on who they play. For those who are unaware and to put it as simply as I’m aware, RPI is a quantity used to rank sports teams based upon a team's wins and losses and its strength of schedule. It’s one of the sports rating systems by which NCAA basketball, baseball, softball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and volleyball teams are ranked. With that explained, as best we could at least, coach Smith talks about how you can play a division one team that has an RPI of 150 or worse and it’ll actually hurt your own RPI if you win that ballgame. With these nonconference games against non-division one schools, whether you win the game by a large amount, lose the game by a large amount, or anything in between, RPI just considers the contest to be an exhibition game. So, if you start to play a bunch of teams that are in the 200’s ranks of RPI (Seattle University, who Washington played a few times this year, is ranked #280 by RPI currently) then you’ll have to report that to the NCAA and they’ll no longer be considered exhibition games.
Those primary factors are what coach Smith cited when discussing these nonconference games that the program played this year and will be playing going forward, in addition to the fact that the game of baseball is meant to be played on a consistent basis. Hitters at the big league level so often reference getting inconsistent playing time as something that’s messed with their ability at the plate, taking them out of a rhythm and messing with their timing. If a pitcher isn’t built up over the course of a season to be able to handle a bigger workload, chances are you won’t be able to rely upon them when the postseason comes and you need longer outings or more outings in quick succession. Those are the sorts of things coach Smith mentioned when discussing playing all 56 of those allotted games in a season, while also preaching the approach for the program to get better every single day. Whether it’s a light workout day in September, a scrimmage in October, or a practice with a dusting of snow in January, a midweek game in May, or a postseason game in June, the process and the preparation is something that he wants to see from his team consistently so that when we get to the nitty gritty of things right about now, his group will be ready for whatever the game throws at them.
“I think it’s critical for our guys to go out there and play. Baseball is a game to be played, that’s why the big leagues play 13 out of 14 days for six straight months. Hitters need that, pitchers need that for development. You get into the postseason, and you’re going to keep playing four and five games over the course of four or five days, we need to have that pitching depth prepared.”
Julio connection
To wrap up this exclusive chat with coach Smith, Washington’s head man discussed his interactions with Seattle Mariners star outfielder Julio Rodríguez, who has shown some love to the Huskies overall over the last few years. Fans of rival schools to Washington that are also Mariners fans won’t like it, but Julio can often be seen sporting a purple Washington wristband around the Seattle clubhouse and during games at times, in addition to being present for several Husky football games over the last few years which include the programs October 14th stunner over Oregon as the Ducks missed a late field goal. So, despite what some will say, it’s not just because Julio is sponsored by Adidas and Washington athletics is partnered with Adidas. After seeing the interaction between Rodríguez and coach Smith back in March, I was curious about the connection and how those experiences have gone, which revealed a fun back story.
“I think I’ve had a chance now to be around him quite a bit. He’s very warm hearted, so genuine and authentic. We’ve connected a little bit over the fact that I’ve been to the Dominican six times myself. I started going down there working a camp, and then I’ve started going down there just on my own on vacation. The culture there, the happiness of the people, and how that intertwines with the energy of the people, the music and then the baseball force, I just love it there. To connect over that a little bit, and then to have him out at our stadium so our guys get to see him, I think that’s one of the things about UW. It’s so special being here in Seattle, because you have that kind of culture and environment here, where it’s so cool to see Julio embrace the Huskies, and I know our players embrace the mariners. So it’s pretty neat.”
What’s next?
Starting tomorrow, the Diamond Dawgs head just a bit south to the state of Oregon for their final road trip of the 2025 regular season, as they’ll take on the Oregon Ducks for a three-game weekend set as Washington seeks an upset of the fifth ranked team in the country. Both teams in this battle of former PAC-12 opponents come into the weekend series red hot, as the Huskies have won seven of their last ten and the Ducks have won eight of their last ten. Washington will have their hands full with Oregon in this series, especially given the injuries that the Huskies are working through currently, as the Ducks lead the conference in homers and team fielding percentage, rank second in walks, slugging, and OPS, third in RBI and total bases. That’s not to mention that Oregon has strong numbers across the board when it comes to their pitchers as well, so at the end of the day the point is that Washington will need to play to the best of their ability, take advantage of any mistakes that the Ducks make, and minimize any of their own mistakes in their quest to win this series. Following this three-game set against Oregon, the Huskies final series of the regular season is next week at Husky Ballpark as Washington plays host to 25th ranked USC for another three-game weekend set.
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