Yesterday was the Penn baseball team's last weekday game.
And other than the players usually relegated to the bench who get the chance to start, it is unlikely that anybody will be sad to see the midweek affairs go.
For the second consecutive afternoon, the Quakers gave up at least 20 runs to a Patriot League opponent. Yesterday, it was Lehigh who lit up the scoreboard against Penn, routing the Quakers by the score of 20-2.
Penn (11-22, 7-9 Ivy), is now 1-4 in non-league games since its first Ivy League contest. Including Tuesday's 23-7 loss at Lafayette, the Quakers have now been outscored 43-9 in their last two games.
"Midweek, we haven't fared too well at all," Penn coach Bob Seddon said.
While Tuesday's demise came early, yesterday, the Quakers met their doom in a pair of consecutive big innings. The league-leading Mountain Hawks (21-14-1, 9-3 Patriot League) turned a 5-1 lead after the fourth inning into a 19-1 advantage after the sixth via a pair of seven-run frames.
After freshman pitcher Steven Schwartz kept Penn relatively close for the first four innings, the parade of Mountain Hawks began.
Lehigh left fielder Andrew Smith led off the fifth with a solo home run off senior reliever Remington Chin, and by the time the parade ended, the Mountain Hawks had batted around in both innings and put up a pair of crooked numbers. By the end of the game, Lehigh had smashed a season-high 27 hits.
"They hit the ball all over the place -- and hard," Seddon said.
And it seemed that whichever pitcher the veteran coach put in, nothing was working. Pitching for the second time in two days, Chin tossed two thirds of an inning, giving up six earned runs on six hits. His 18th appearance of the season yesterday set a new Penn record, eclipsing Jud Damon's 17-year-old mark.
The next two pitchers who Penn sent to the mound did not even make it two thirds of an inning.
Sean Abate gave up his designated hitter spot to relieve Chin, but he gave up three runs in a third of an inning. Next, it was Kenneth Yoo, who made his first appearance of the year, but could fare no better. He allowed four earned runs in a third of an inning.
"I was in shock that we didn't pitch better than that," Seddon said.
Leading the way for the Mountain Hawks was designated hitter Matt McBride, who went 4-for-4, including three doubles, and finished with three runs scored and five RBIs.
The entire Lehigh lineup seemed to have the Penn hurlers' numbers, though, as six different batters recorded three or more hits and all nine starters got into the hit column.
And while the lack of pitching came to the forefront, for the second straight day, the fielding let the Quakers down again.
Twenty-four hours after making a season-high five errors against the Leopards, Penn made another three yesterday.
But as has been the case all season with the weekday games, the unimportance of yesterday's contest -- combined with the lopsided score -- gave the coaching staff a chance to get lots of players into the game.
In addition to the six pitchers that Penn used, 15 different Quakers got at-bats. Also, a couple of unusual absences gave two players additional opportunities.
Senior outfielder Alex Blagojevich missed the game because of a job interview, allowing Michael Gatti to get his second start of the season. Backup catcher Henry Watson was taking a test, which gave Ken-Ichi Hino -- usually used as a pinch-runner -- a chance to enter the game for starter Matt Horn.
While Penn got very little from its pitching staff and defense, it did not get much more from its offense.
Backup shortstop Alex Nwaka hit his first home run of the year, but Penn only managed one other run on the day.
As non-league play ends, the Quakers turn their eyes to Ithaca, N.Y., where they will face Cornell four times this weekend to end the year.
Anything less than a sweep would be devastating as Penn trails Lou Gehrig division-leading Princeton by two games, and four in the loss column.
To beat the Big Red (10-15, 4-6), it will take a better effort in all aspects of the game than the Quakers showed the last two days.
Seddon agreed and summed it up perfectly.
"We didn't show up to play the last two days," he said. "We better show up this weekend."
