Baseball: Signs of life, but more of the same

The song "Can't Touch This" blared from the Meiklejohn Stadium speakers as Penn reliever Doug Brown walked from the mound towards the dugout in the sixth inning yesterday.

Yet the lyrics hardly reflected his performance on the mound.

For the fourth time in five opportunities this season, the Quakers' top reliever blew a save.

And for the Quakers, a weekend that started out nearly perfect ended far from it. They lost their final three games against Columbia, 9-0, 8-6 and 6-2, after winning the first 12-0.

In the third game of the four, a eleven-inning affair, Brown entered with one out in the sixth and a man on first base. He loaded the bases with an infield single and a walk before earning a strikeout for out No. 2.

But the next ball was smacked into center field, and senior Joey Boaen dove for it but was not especially close. The hit that would have been a single rolled all the way to the wall for a bases-clearing triple, turning the Quakers' 4-3 lead into a 6-4 deficit.

"It was a really pivotal moment, and he tried to save the game," senior captain Josh Corn said of Boaen's dive. "He tried to make a big play, and you can never fault someone for that."

Brown, meanwhile, does not know why he recently has been unable to close out games.

"I wish I could explain it," he said, "because I'd change it in a heartbeat."

Brown did speculate that maybe he was not sufficiently loose; in the future, he said, he plans to warm up earlier.

The Quakers got a big break of their own in the bottom of the seventh. Corn hit a bases-loaded single to right to bring Penn within one. With the bases still loaded and one out, designated hitter Kyle Armeny grounded back to the pitcher.

Columbia pitcher Clay Bartlett went to complete the game-ending pitcher-to-catcher-to-first baseman double play. But his throw home sailed away, plating the tying run.

That forced extra innings. Brown pitched the longest outing of his career, lasting five and two-third innings - longer than freshmen starter Jim Birmingham.

With two on in the eleventh, Penn coach John Cole, who refused to comment after the losses, visited the mound.

"He said, 'Do you have anything left?'" Brown said. "I said 'Yeah, I have it, I'll get it.' . My gameplan was breaking balls away to get the groundout, and I got the ground ball. It just didn't bounce the right way."

Freshmen shortstop William Gordon started to flip the ball before he had fielded it. Instead, the ball sailed through his legs, and the go-ahead run crossed the plate.

This time, there was no last-ditch comeback.

The Quakers' disappointment carried over into second game, in which they managed just five hits while losing 6-2.

"You always wonder how your guys are going to bounce back," said Penn assistant coach John Yurkow, speaking since Cole had left. "There was a little bit of a letdown, there's no doubt about that."

The lack of offense, however, plagued Penn throughout the weekend. After scoring a dozen in freshman Todd Roth's near-no-hitter, the Quakers were blown out 9-0 in game two on Saturday and scored just eight runs total in yesterday's losses.

"I don't know if it's energy level or competitiveness - if people were satisfied with the hits they got in the first game," Brown said. "The bats didn't show up. The pitching was there for the most part."

Corn thought the problem lay in their approach.

"We swung at a lot of balls and took a lot of strikes," he said. "That's not a record of success."

Once the dust settled, the coaching staff tried to be optimistic about the Quakers rough 1-3 weekend.

"We have a lot of season to go," Yurkow said. "Baseball is not a sprint, it's a marathon."

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