NEWARK, Del. — There is nothing more frustrating for a baseball player than being pitched around. Especially when he has a hot bat and a chance to win the game for his struggling team.

But you can't blame the Delaware Blue Hens for intentionally walking Donnie Wright in the seventh inning of Sunday's game. Wright came to the plate with Rod Perry on third base and the Lions ahead by a run.

But against a team that was hitting well over .300 on the weekend, the Nittany Lions could have used a little cushion.

Hens catcher John Schneider looked at the scoreboard, then over to his bench then to pitcher Mike Pelcher, who merely nodded. Schneider stayed standing and caught the next four balls that way and Wright went to first.

But instead of stopping there, he continued around towards second base, trying to bait Delaware into catching him in a rundown. He bought the speedy Perry some time and Perry broke for home. Perry was called out at home despite sliding around Schneider, which turned out to be a pivotal swing in the momentum of the game.

Even Delaware questioned the umpire's decision.

"That one went to us," Delaware coach Jim Sherman, in his first season after taking over for the legendary Bob Hannah, said of the call. "But that happens in baseball."

But the seventh inning was not the only time the Hens pitched around Wright, who entered the weekend with just one home run. That statistic changed quickly on Saturday, when he went yard twice in the first game and once in the second, all to different parts of the field.

"I was seeing the ball very well," he said. "It's been that way in practice for a while but now it came out on the field. That's always satisfying."

He led off the third inning of the first game with an opposite field bomb that cut Delaware's lead to 6-4. With the Hens up 9-4 in the fifth he crushed a fastball over the right field fence for another solo shot.

In the second game, with the Nittany Lions already out of the game, he hit a ball 400 feet over the center field wall, bringing home Chris Wright and making the score 12-3.

"He can mash," Sherman said. "He was hitting everything."

Delaware's pitchers had been shutting down Chris Wright all day on Saturday by getting him to chase balls out of the strike zone. But when they saw what Donnie Wright was doing, they knew they couldn't afford to let Chris Wright walk. With better pitches to hit, Chris Wright's bat came alive as the weekend progressed.

"Donnie opened up our offense with his home runs," Penn State coach Joe Hindelang said.

"They didn't respect him much early in the day, and they paid for it."

Wright finished the trip with six hits and 5 RBI. He is second on the team with a .381 batting average, leads the club with 24 hits and 41 total bases and also has the most RBI with 16. His five doubles and 16 runs scored are also team bests. He has a .681 slugging percentage.

"You just try to go out and do your best," he said.

"Somedays it comes together for the team. It's nice when you can contribute, but you'd rather get the win."