The basepaths were quite unkind to the Penn baseball team yesterday -- both in the first game when the Quakers were on offense, and in the second when Harvard was at the plate.
The result was a sweep for the Crimson and a screeching halt to the Quakers' momentum as Harvard took the first game, 6-4, and ran away with an 11-5 victory in the second at Murphy Field.
In the opener, after trailing 4-0, the Quakers crawled back to within a run, but were eventually done in by misfortune between first and second base.
In the fifth inning, with the score 4-3 and one down, pinch-runner Ken-Ichi Hino was picked off at first base by the Crimson's Steffan Wilson. Then in the seventh and final inning, trailing by two with the tying run at the plate, pinch-runner Alex Nwaka was thrown out trying to advance to second on a ball that squirted away from catcher Schuyler Mann. Spencer Witte then flied out to end the game.
Whatever it was that the Quakers (8-13, 5-3 Ivy) were lacking on the basepaths in the opener, Harvard found it during the nightcap.
The Crimson (11-6, 4-0) took advantage of favorable deliveries by right-handers Brian Cirri, Remington Chin and Andy Console to swipe seven bases on eight attempts, including three by shortstop Morgan Brown. Over the course of the two games, Harvard was 10-for-11 in stolen base attempts.
"That's every day for us," Harvard coach Joe Walsh said of the team's aggressiveness on the bases.
He added that in the first game, Penn left-handed starter Josh Appell "held runners pretty good, and we got more aggressive against the right-handers."
Penn catcher Matt Horn, who started both games, took responsibility for the Crimson's ability to steal bags and said that it was a product of the heat of the moment.
"When you're in close games, pitchers are worried about making the right pitches and I'm worried about calling the right pitches," Horn said.
Aside from the base-running, the senior backstop's day was made more difficult by control issues. Appell threw only 46 of his 93 pitches in game 1 for strikes and handed out seven bases on balls.
He also threw three wild pitches, and Cirri uncorked three more in game 2. But Horn was very quick to mention that the pitchers should not be blamed for the losses.
"Our pitchers have been making good pitches all year," Horn said. "The third and fourth game [in two days] -- arms get tired."
A perfect example of this would be Chin, who gave up a three-run home run in game 2, which put the game out of reach at 9-4. Chin came out of the bullpen in both games of Monday's doubleheader and was in his third inning of relief work when he gave up the blast to first baseman Josh Klimkiewicz.
Given the effects of the doubleheader against Dartmouth Monday, Penn coach Bob Seddon was just fine with the effort on the mound.
"We did pretty well pitching considering we were stretched for arms."
Adding to the base-running woes for the Quakers were problems defensively, as Penn committed three errors in the first five innings of game 2, leading to three unearned runs against Cirri.
"Cirri deserved better," Seddon said.
Despite the losses, the Penn offense was far from silent. In game 1, first baseman Sean Abate -- who leads the team with a .359 batting average -- went 3-for-3 including a monstrous solo home run over the right field fence.
In the next game, it was right fielder Bryan Graves who came through at the plate, slamming a three-run triple to stake Penn to an early 3-0 lead, but in the middle innings, the wheels fell off.
In the fifth, Harvard scored two runs on one hit, as an ugly sequence featured a walk, followed by a Kyle Armeny error, two straight wild pitches and a single to left. The Crimson would tack on four more in the sixth for a three-run lead.
Then in the bottom of the seventh, the Quakers had a chance to get back in it, but would get no closer than 6-4.
Nate Moffie led off with a double, and he was followed by an Abate walk and a Graves single to load the bases with no outs. Armeny hit a single into right, and Moffie scored, but Abate was thrown out at the plate by Lance Salsgiver.
Even then, the tying runs were still aboard, but Jason Brown got Penn shortstop Evan Sobel to fly out to center, and Javier Castellanos shut the door by striking out backup catcher Hank Watson.
It was impossible for Seddon to pin the loss on any player or aspect of the game.
"We all had our moments," the 34-year veteran said.
Today, behind the fresher arms of Michael Gibbons, Joe Wilamowski and Joe Thornton, Penn will have the chance to put those moments in the past against La Salle.
As for the impact of yesterday's doubleheader on the Lou Gehrig Division standings, Penn's two losses, combined with Princeton's consecutive sweeps of Yale and Brown, put the Quakers a game behind the 4-0 Tigers.
Currently looking upward in the division standings, the Quakers have Princeton in their sights with doubleheaders on April 16 and 17 at Murphy Field looming.
Seddon knows that as well as anybody.
"You want to get into that last weekend with a legitimate shot to win the division," he said.
While it is easy to think ahead to the matchup with the Tigers, doubleheaders against Yale and Brown are in the immediate future this weekend, and the Quakers have to hope that the arms are rested enough to finish out a stretch of nine games in seven days.
