IN THE BLEACHERS: Bullpen provides no relief for Penn

Penn coach Bob Seddon couldn't have asked for any more. In a midweek game, Seddon chose sophomore Mike Shannon, not a regular starter, to pitch before 60,000 empty seats at Veterans Stadium. Shannon gave Seddon six strong innings and left having staked the Quakers to a three-run lead. He gave it everything he had. By effectively changing speeds, Shannon kept the Delaware hitters off balance for the majority of the game. Shannon set the first batter of the game up with fast balls, only to strike him out with the slow stuff. He found similar success with the Blue Hens' cleanup hitter, left fielder Tom Lafferty to end the first inning. Although he allowed Delaware to score a run and temporarily take a one-run lead in the second, the run more appropriately belonged to Penn freshman Mark DeRosa, who came closer to hitting the empty seats behind first base than finding Quaker first baseman Dave Krzemienski on a seemingly routine ground ball. After regaining his composure after the second, Shannon (6 innings, 6 hits, 0 earned runs, 4 strikeouts, 1 walk) went back to work, and never allowed a Blue Hen to get past second base for the remainder of his six-inning stint. He made Delaware look foolish as he had the Blue Hens swinging in front of pitches, behind pitches or just taking strikes all afternoon. "Mike was doing great," Penn catcher Joe Piacenti said. "He had a lot of pop on the ball. He was getting the curve over for a strike and was changing speed a lot. When you do that, the hitters can't sit back and wait on the fast ball." But when Shannon left, with the Quakers still clinging to a 4-1 lead, the fun really began. Senior reliever Mike Komsky looked impressive as he shut the Blue Hens down in order in the seventh. But unfortunately for the Quakers, the same cannot be said of the eighth. Komsky was ripped apart like a pi-ata on Cinco de Mayo. While Shannon spread out six hits over six innings, Delaware reeled off five hits in the eighth to tie the game at 4. "We blew it," Seddon said. "The relief pitching didn't hold.?Komsky pitched a good seventh and then he didn't fare well in the eighth. They had a couple of end-of-the-bat hits." But if Komsky's three runs in two innings had Seddon looking for the antacid bottle, junior closer Mike Martin's ninth must have driven Seddon to look for a bottle of scotch. Seddon handed the ball to Martin for the ninth with the score notched at 4. It didn't take long for Martin to get into trouble. Martin hit the first batter. The next bunted successfully for an infield hit. Then Delaware shortstop Deron Brown loaded the bases on a fielder's choice. So with the bases juiced, Martin faced the Blue Hens' star, third baseman Cliff Brumbaugh, who promptly hit the ball into deep center field for an easy double, clearing the bases. "I really don't have any excuses," Martin said following the Quakers' 7-4 loss. "It was just a bad inning.?I went out there and they just ripped the ball. I got the ball up a little bit and they punished me for it." After those final two innings, in which the Quakers were outscored 6-0, Seddon had a right to ask for more.