Streaky Baseball seeks a momentum boost

Streaks are a part of any season, but for the Penn baseball team, streaks have defined their whole season to date.

The Quakers(8-18, 5-7 Ivy) started by losing nine in a row, then won eight of their next 10, including five in a row. But now they find themselves in a seven-game slide.

So what would normally be a relatively unimportant non-league warm-up against St. Joseph's (7-20, 3-3 Atlantic-10) this afternoon has taken on an added degree of importance.

"I would like to win the game to get a little momentum," Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "Because I think at this point momentum is more important than it would normally be."

The Quakers have lost their last seven games, but none of them have been blowouts. They dropped three of those games by only one run, and in two more games they fell short by just two.

Penn has generally scored runs, with the notable exception of a 2-0 loss at Yale when Elis ace Josh Sowers kept the Quakers bats at bay, pitching a three-hit, complete game shutout on just 71 pitches.

"They weren't really flat in any game," Seddon said. "They come back like crazy, that's the best part of this team. Every game is alike in that at the end we're in it and it could go either way."

The Hawks have struggled since the beginning of the season. Like the Quakers, they had a rough opening road trip, dropping seven in a row in Florida. But, they have played relatively well lately, taking two of three from La Salle, a team that beat Penn at Murphy Field last week.

St. Joe's top hitter is Matt Godusky, a sophomore outfielder who leads the team with a .318 batting average. Outside of Godusky, however, the Hawks feature no everyday starter batting over .300. Even Godusky hasn't fared well with runners in scoring position -- he has only five RBIs, tied for seventh on the team.

The Hawks as a whole do not have a powerful offense. They have scored over three runs only eight times this season and have scored one or zero runs on nine occasions.

Although the starting pitchers have not been confirmed, Penn will use some combination of Remington Chin, Joe Wilamowski and Dan Finkelstein in the game. The decision to use a weekend pitcher like Chin is an unusual one for a mid-week, non-league game, but the streaky Quakers would love to get a win under their belts.

Wilamowski is one of the non-weekend pitchers who will probably be featured in Wednesday's game. The junior shined in his only appearance of the season, allowing only one earned run and striking out three in four innings of work last week against La Salle.

The game will still feature a number of lineup changes, which Seddon is prone to make for Wednesday games because "it gives the kids who don't play a lot a chance to play."

Against La Salle, Penn's best hitter, Sean Abate, got the day off, although he did pinch hit late.

Abate has been on a tear as of late. He leads the team in almost every relevant offensive category, hitting .338, with three home runs, 19 RBIs and an OPS of .951. The big-hitting first baseman will need to have another monster weekend if Penn wants to have a chance to overtake perennial Lou Gehrig Division winner Princeton. The Tigers currently have a two game lead on the Quakers.

But before it starts its four-game set with Princeton, the Quakers will get a chance to face an opponent they should beat.

But with their current slide, getting on the winning track now is a must, especially leading into their biggest weekend of the season.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.