With the Western Athletic Conference season just two days away, Hawai'i has one more tuneup when it takes on No. 19 San Diego 6:35 tonight at Les Murakami Stadium.

While the Rainbows (7-12) would like to break an 0-8 spell against nationally ranked teams, their first order of business is to just show improvement from over the weekend, when they were swept in a three-game series by UC Irvine, which moved from No. 8 to No. 5 in Collegiate Baseball's top 25.

"It will be a good opportunity for our guys to just go out and play better than they played this weekend, so they can get ready for conference," UH coach Mike Trapasso said. "Up until the end of tomorrow's game, we measure things by just trying to play better and get better. Starting Thursday, we measure by wins and losses."

Josh Schneider will start tonight for UH in a game that will be staffed. Trapasso said no pitcher will throw more than two innings. Unlike last week, when Schneider was on a roll against Alabama-Birmingham, going six innings in a game that was supposed to be staffed, Trapasso will have to adhere to keeping the right-hander to two innings because he is scheduled to start one of the games in Saturday's doubleheader against Fresno State.

For the FSU series, Jared Alexander will start Thursday and Nick Rhodes on Friday. Schneider and Josh Slaats will start Saturday.

Matt Daly, who has made four starts, will be used from the bullpen.

"He's more valuable for us throwing out of the bullpen more than once a weekend," Trapasso said.

Out for the week, and possibly longer, are outfielder Ryan Asato and shortstop Greg Garcia. Both suffered injuries running out grounders in the first game of Saturday's doubleheader at UC Irvine.

Asato, who returned last week from a hamate bone injury, pulled a hamstring. He is expected to miss 2 to 4 weeks, Trapasso said. Garcia is definitely out for the FSU series with an ankle injury.

"We were hoping to take him on the road trip next weekend, but we just don't know," Trapasso said. "It's too early to tell. He had significant swelling today, so it's a pretty good sprain."

Meanwhile, the Toreros (13-7), favored to win the West Coast Conference, completed a four-game series sweep of UH-Hilo with a 9-4 win yesterday in a game that had two delays for rain and another for lightning totaling about 90 minutes. It was called after five innings because of time constraints, as USD had a flight for Honolulu after the game.

The Toreros will start either left-hander Josh Romanski or right-hander Darrin Campbell, USD coach Rich Hill said during one of the weather delays.

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.