When a baseball game gets down to the wire, the most important player on the leading team is the closing pitcher.
With their own closer, senior Brian Winings, out for the season with an injury, Penn's baseball team has come to learn this lesson the hard way.
The Quakers were swept in a doubleheader against Brown by scores of 4-3, in 11 innings, and6-4 Saturday. Yesterday, they continued their slide -- now at seven games -- with 2-0 and 7-6 losses at Yale.
The losses were especially disheartening for the team because the Quakers (8-18, 5-7 Ivy) had the lead in three out of the four games but were unable to hold on.
"The whole weekend was a case of not being able to hold a lead late in the game," Quakers coach Bob Seddon said.
Seddon does not attribute Winings' absence as the sole reason for the Quakers' woeful finishes, but recognizes its effect on the rest of team.
"We're just missing an arm," Seddon said. "Sometimes it takes a toll on your pitchers."
Because of the understaffing on the mound, Steven Schwartz and Remington Chin both pitched twice over the weekend.
Schwartz's first appearance came in the bottom of the eighth in the second game against Brown (11-12, 4-2). The Quakers led 4-2 going into the inning, but suffered a defensive collapse behind the freshman pitcher.
The Bears were able to rally for four runs off of four hits and two errors.
The fielding mistakes once again proved costly for the Quakers-- who lost to Villanova earlier this season due to the same problem.
Penn first baseman Sean Abate thinks that the team just needs to work on the little things.
"It's just the intangibles," Abate said. "We obviously have the talent, it's just about coming through and putting the nail in the coffin when you have a late lead."
Abate has certainly been doing his part to help out the Quakers.
After hitting well enough to be named Ivy League co-Player of the Week, he picked up four hits on the weekend, including his first triple of the year.
He also picked up two of the Quakers' three hits against ace Josh Sowers of Yale (14-10, 5-3).
Penn's batters were overmatched against the hard-throwing senior, who fanned eight in a complete game shutout.
They also did not fare too well against his teammate Jon Hollis in the next game. Penn struck out seven times against the league leader and three more times against the rest of the Elis' staff.
Penn had trouble at the plate throughout the whole weekend, striking out 45 times in just the four games.
"We struck out the entire weekend," Seddon said. "And it killed us."
Even so, Penn still managed to put up a good fight against the Ivy League competition.
Winning two of the games would have greatly helped the Quakers in their attempt to try and catch first-place Princeton in the Lou Gehrig Division, but with the losses the Quakers fell four games behind the Tigers in the loss column. Princeton has 12 league games remaining, while Penn has eight. The two teams will play a four-game set this weekend.
Seddon pointed out his team's relentlessness in games in which they fall behind, and the team will have to battle back in order to overtake Princeton at the top of the division.
"Everybody in our division lost [on Saturday] and the teams are all pretty equal," Seddon said.
"By the fact that we were in every game, we know that we're just as good as all of these teams," said Abate. "We're still in pretty decent shape. We still have a chance."
