Baseball set to regain aim

Quakers challenge Lehigh When the Penn baseball team travels to Lehigh today, there will be much work to do. The Quakers will be trying to do many things when they take on the Engineers. They will be trying to fix all the things that went wrong at Dartmouth and Harvard last weekend. They will be trying to regain their focus and intensity. They will be trying to get ready for this weekend's four Ivy League games. And they will be trying to win the game. Penn (13-9-1) is presently in fourth place in the Ivies' Gehrig Division, with a 5-5 league mark. The Quakers are by no means out of the race, as they are only a game (two in the loss column) behind first-place Princeton. But the Quakers have not been impressive as of late, and this weekend's four upcoming games against Cornell will be crucial. So Penn needs to start filling holes and fixing problems today. "We know we have to pick things up a little bit after last weekend," relief pitcher Mike Martin said. "Basically, we had a bad weekend and we have a lot of games to go, so we can get going again." One of the things that has plagued the Quakers of late has been pitching. The Quakers' staff yielded 44 runs in the four games last weekend, with Penn's only win by a 10-9 score. Top starters Ed Haughey and Dan Galles have ERAs of 7.33 and 6.38, respectively, and Martin, the team's closer, now holds an ERA of 7.36. No one thinks numbers like these will win the division. And numbers like these certainly don't make anything easier out in the field. "The defense is really affected by the pitching," senior co-captain and shortstop Eddie MacDonald said. "If the pitchers don't throw strikes and start walking guys, then the errors will start coming. We really need our pitchers to work fast and throw strikes." But putting the pitching woes aside, Penn's defense has had its own problems. The Quakers were counting on their leather to be a significant asset this season, so they cannot afford to slip up in the field. None of the recent defensive problems have the team concerned. Playing conditions last weekend were not ideal. Most of the Quakers were less than impressed with the field at Dartmouth, and they played in pouring rain at Harvard. Whatever the conditions today, however, Penn will need to put together all aspects of its game. The lineup has often been hot as a group, and then cold as a group. And when they've been hot, the Quakers have often simply been outscored by their opponents. "We had a meeting and we discussed what we have to do to turn it around," MacDonald said. "We're still pretty optimistic. One of things we talked about was putting together offense, defense and pitching at the same time. Last weekend, the hits were there, but the other two weren't. No matter which one you have, you can't win without all three." Of the three things, the hits have indeed been there. The Quakers team batting average now sits at a gaudy .322, and they have reached base more than 41 percent of the time. Outfielder Tim Shannon leads the team with a.391 average, and second baseman Derek Nemeth is not far behind at .382. Another Quaker who has been hot is freshman third baseman Mark DeRosa. He was named to the Ivy League Honor Roll last week, going 8 for 19 in five games with two home runs, five runs scored and seven RBI. In addition to these fundamentals, Penn will also use the Lehigh game to rediscover its focus. Some players have observed a lack of intensity as a result of the team's up-and-down play. "At the beginning of the year, we had a great team attitude -- everything was together," Martin said. "That's deteriorated a little bit and we need to fix it. Sometimes it's tough to get motivated for a midweek game as compared to a weekend, but it's still baseball. So you have to go out and do your best." And so the Quakers will attempt to get a number of things done today. But they are things that must be done if Penn is to get back to where it wants to be. Back to the intensity it showed earlier this year. Back in the win column. It's an awful lot to get done in one afternoon game. But the Quakers will get only so many chances before it's too late. · Harvard shortstop Mike Giardi, who also was the Crimson quarterback during football season, was named Ivy League Player of the Week for his efforts this past weekend. Giardi went 10 for 13 during weekend doubleheaders against Penn and Columbia. He leads the Ivy League in batting average, both in the league (.556) and overall (.492). Brown's Jamie Stanzler earned Ivy League Pitcher of the Week honors after pitching a complete-game shutout against Cornell this weekend. He boasts an Ivy ERA of 0.75 (one run in 12 innings).