PRINCETON, N.J. - The Quakers needed to win game two of their Sunday doubleheader against Princeton in the worst way. They plated three runs in the top of the first inning, and sophomore Robbie Seymour went to the mound refusing to take any chances. That included letting a runner steal second base.
So when centerfielder Derek Beckman singled to lead off the game, Seymour watched him like a hawk. He threw to first base once, then twice, then three times, then four times.
Beckman eventually ended up at second anyway, but the throw-overs are as much a part of Seymour's game plan as is throwing strikes.
"My pickoff move is something that I take pride in, and it's something that I feel I'm pretty good at," he said. "You can only pitch so much in practice. You've got to work on the other stuff as well."
Seymour has four of the Quakers' 10 pickoffs on the year, leading his closest teammate by two. One of them helped extinguish a two-out threat in the second inning of Sunday's game, which Penn eventually won 5-4.
As a right-hander, Seymour does not enjoy the natural advantage in pickoffs that lefties do. Because left-handers face first base from the stretch position, they are not forced to throw across their bodies when holding runners.
Oddly enough, his success in pickoffs stands in contrast to baserunners' success running on him. On the year, they are a perfect 7-for-7 on stolen-base attempts.
Seymour's attention to runners has other drawbacks. He committed a balk three innings after his pickoff on Sunday, although most voices in the Penn dugout - including coach John Cole - thought it was a phantom call, as did Seymour.
"I don't know what exactly I did that was a balk, but I think the first-base coach got in the ump's ear, and he made the call," Seymour said.
"They said he buckled his knee," Cole added. "Buckling his knee - that's kind of a random term."
The NCAA defines 13 infractions which trigger a balk, most of which guard against deceiving baserunners. A pitcher must come to a complete stop before beginning his delivery, for example, and once he does make a move toward home plate, he must complete the pitch. No extraneous movements are allowed.
As Seymour discovered, a good pickoff move doesn't mean that runners won't steal, or that umpires will refrain from calling balks, real or imagined.
Roth's run support missing. For the third time this year, Todd Roth took the mound in an Ivy League game and pitched admirably in a losing effort.
He threw six innings in game one on Saturday and yielded just one run, only to be outpitched by Princeton's Brad Gemberling, who threw a complete-game shutout.
On April 13, Roth started an equally important game against Cornell, and the Quakers managed just one run. Roth allowed three earned over five innings and ended up on the wrong side of an 8-1 decision.
And back on March 30, he threw seven innings against Brown and yielded two runs, but his teammates' bats again couldn't respond, and Roth was saddled with another ill-deserved loss, 2-1.
