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In the first three games they played this season, the Arizona Wildcats went 0-3 and were outscored 31-7.

In the last three games they played, the Wildcats went 3-0 and outscored their opponents 31-6.

Each weekend even featured a one-run opener and a pair of blowouts.

What should we take away from this funky factoid?

Arizona baseball has come a long way over the course of a long season.

In an era of instant gratification and real-time feedback, it’s easy to forget that teams evolve over the course of a season — especially in college athletics. The oldest players are in their early 20s. The youngest are in their teens. No one is a finished product.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that even a UA team chock-full of veterans hit some bumps on the way to Tobacco Road. ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV opens a best-of-three Super Regional series at No. 5 national seed North Carolina on Friday morning.

“There’s been a lot to learn this year,� senior second baseman Garen Caulfield said in early May. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs.�

With rare exceptions, every college baseball team rides the roller coaster. The Wildcats just so happened to dip at an unexpected and late juncture.

The down cycle

Arizona was cruising along for the most part — winning series against the best teams in the Big 12 and putting itself in contention for the regular-season league title — before losing five of six games in early-to-mid May. Most of those losses happened against clubs the Wildcats should’ve handled.

Dropping the series finale to TCU on Star Wars Day? No big deal. The Cats already had won the first two. It still felt as if the force was with them.

Falling in a midweek game to Grand Canyon? Frustrating, but not unprecedented. GCU has had Arizona’s number — although, ultimately, this would prove to be a lesser Lopes team than recent iterations.

Then came Utah. The worst team in the conference. Back-to-back, ugly setbacks at Hi Corbett Field on Senior Weekend. RPI ruined. Hosting hopes hosed.

A Sunday win vs. the Utes brought back optimism. But it didn’t last. Arizona got blown out in the opener of the final regular-season series at Houston, another squad in the bottom half of the conference standings.

Those of us who follow UA baseball closely were wondering at that point if a season that once held great promise never would materialize. I hate to admit it, but I was ready to jump off the bandwagon. In the preseason, I had touted this team as an Omaha-caliber club. In midseason, I had written that the best was yet to come.

I wasn’t the only one suddenly consumed with doubt. Even the Wildcats themselves were wavering a bit.

“We lost to Houston,� Caulfield said. “I wouldn’t call that rock bottom for the season. But ... we were like, ‘Dang, are we going to make a regional? What’s going on?’

“We’re supposed to host one day. And then now it’s like we’re on the bubble.�

The middle game of the Houston series is when reserve outfielder TJ Adams introduced a toy giveaway for the UA player of the game. It lightened the mood. Arizona hasn’t lost since and is now one of the hottest teams in the country.

Why couldn’t the Wildcats play that way all along? Because becoming a winning team is a process — even for a team that brought back the bulk of its lineup.

“Trust has just been a big thing,� junior outfielder Brendan Summerhill said. “We just get to know each other. That’s such a blessing. Playing this long, you get so familiar with your guys.

“You think you have it all figured out going into the year. You think you know. You say you trust them. But you gotta build that. That’s built throughout a year.

“It was tough because Fogle (outfielder Easton Breyfogle) was hurt at the beginning, then I got hurt. We’ve had guys in and out, and it’s hard.�

‘We’ve grown’

Injuries definitely were a factor. Summerhill, Arizona’s highest-rated pro prospect, missed over 40% of the regular season because of hand and hamstring injuries. Breyfogle battled a recurring quadriceps issue.

They were both back for the Utah series. But hitting a baseball is a rhythmic activity. It comes and goes. When you’ve missed time, it takes time to get back to where you were.

Even as late as the Eugene Regional opener — Game No. 58 — the UA offense wasn’t quite right. The Wildcats managed just two hits against Cal Poly. They won anyway.

Coach Chip Hale revealed this week that Arizona made a “philosophical change� to its batting practice routine after that game. He wouldn’t say exactly what it was. But the Wildcats scored 14 runs in each of the next two games, hitting 14 home runs.

“We’ve gone through ups and downs,� Hale said. “You look at a major-league team, guys are going to go through their ups and downs. Right now we feel good about the bats. We just gotta keep that good feeling going.�

They should feel good about their pitching, too. The staff has been stellar during the winning streak. Closer Tony Pluta cited a staff-wide “mental reset� during the Houston series. Freshman Smith Bailey said pitching coach Kevin Vance dug into the numbers and altered the pitch mix.

Vance has access to every conceivable piece of data. But you don’t truly know what your guys are capable of until they face real adversity.

“The stuff is the same,� Hale said. “I think Kevin has gotten a better idea of what each pitcher does well, and he’s really accentuated that.�

The staff had an 11.16 ERA after the opening-weekend tournament in Arlington, Texas. It has a 1.31 mark in the postseason, including a shutout to punch Arizona’s ticket to Super Regionals.

Speaking of punches, that’s one of the terms players and coaches have used to describe those first three games. It was a punch to the gut. A slap in the face. A 95-mph brushback pitch.

Turns out that experience — and the struggles that followed — eventually helped the Wildcats become the best version of themselves.

“We’ve grown mentally, physically, playing the game,� senior reliever Julian Tonghini said. “It’s a testament to the coaching staff. It’s a testament to every one of the players.

“You don’t want to start off a season that way. But that’s where we were, and that’s what happened. And look at where we’re at now.�