Baseball tunes up for Tigers with Army

It's not often that a team taking the field against an opponent with a lower winning percentage can look at it as a major challenge. But for Penn (12-17-1), this afternoon's game against Army (12-24) at Johnson Stadium serves as a crucial test for the Red and Blue in mental toughness. Army has internal strength. The Quakers have only showed it sporadically. Cadets starting pitcher Matt Cini stepped onto the Johnson Stadium mound Sunday carrying a 7.83 earned run average. The hard-throwing sophomore wasn't Army coach Dan Roberts' first choice to take the hill against Lehigh in the Cadets' biggest game of the season. Army needed a 'W' in the Sunday nightcap to sweep the weekend four from the Engineers and get back into the Patriot League playoff hunt. The young righthander, who allowed 8.5 earned runs last season, got the nod by default, as the rest of the bullpen was depleted. A shaky Cini looked like the rotation's mop-up starter early, allowing a second-inning leadoff home run to Phil Stambaugh to put Lehigh ahead. But then something unexpected happened. Balls became strikes, home runs turned to flyouts and big rallies transformed to runners stranded. Only two more Engineers would reach scoring position, as Cini retired 10 of his last 13 batters. Army scored twice in the bottom of the seventh to win it, 2-1. The mental toughness seen in gutty performances like Cini's explain why Army (12-24) is 4-1 in one-run games, despite an overall .333 winning percentage. Penn saw something to that extent from Sean McDonald in his past two starts, but the Quakers need to start seeing more of it. "Mental toughness does a lot," Roberts said. "But also, good relief pitching also helps." Both have served as Penn's undoing most of this season. Most recently, in Monday's doubleheader with Cornell, the Quakers squandered a 5-4 lead after six to lose 8-6 in the opener. Then, in the nightcap, the Quakers couldn't push a third run across in a ninth inning rally, falling 9-8. "Basically, [Army] knows how to win close games," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "There's a knack for winning one-run games. We had our share. We had leads in a lot and let them go. There's toughness involved." Army closer Brian Abell's stats are less than stellar this season. He's 0-1 with a 6.23 ERA. But he usually seems to pitch just well enough to hold onto a lead, a perfect 4-for-4 in save opportunities. The Penn bullpen, however, has already blown 10 saves as a team. Quakers closer Travis Arbogast has the second best ERA on the team. But record-wise, he's just 1-5 with five blown saves. Arbogast has tossed 28 1/3 innings this season, dwarfing Abell, who has thrown 8 2/3 in nine outings, never more than an inning per game. Today's pitching match-up features another Army starter who like Cini until Sunday is yet to show much. Freshman Buck Adams, in just his second collegiate start, comes in at 0-1 with a 12.54 ERA. Roberts wants to push Adams to his limits today. "He hasn't pitched real well," Roberts said. "But I want him on the mound to see what he can do. I'll let him throw as long as he can and then he has three days before he'll pitch middle relief." Seddon scouted the Trenton, N.J., native last season and had hoped to make him a Quaker. "I saw him pitch in the Carpenter Cup last year," the Penn coach said. "He was a kid I had written this season. But he wanted the military." The Red and Blue will in turn throw a plethora of arms. McDonald, coming off the no-hitter, will throw an inning along with staff ace Armen Simonian, if he doesn't have to stay back in Philadelphia for a class review. Duff Blair, a freshman from Texas, is slated to make his Quakers debut. Ray Broome, Brian Burket, Todd Mahoney and Nick Barnhost each will likely see an inning of relief. Putting behind a series of late-inning one-run losses is never an easy task. And Johnson Field isn't the most friendly confines to start. But if Penn can win a tight one today, the team is on its way toward a valuable lesson. Confidence leads to success, and success breeds upon itself. Like Cini in the early innings Sunday, the Penn baseball team must prove to themselves that they can make the clutch plays. Only then will the Quakers, like Army, stand a legitimate shot at a winning streak and a postseason run.