Bad timing has plagued the Penn State baseball team.

"We've played great defense, then we've fallen apart at times," Penn State head coach Robbie Wine said at practice this week. "We've pitched well, but then in crunch times, we haven't. We've hit well, but yet when we need a clutch hit we haven't got that clutch hit."

All that has left the Nittany Lions with fewer wins (four) and more losses (13) than the team expected to have entering this weekend's series at Arizona State.

The series against the No. 17 Sun Devils begins at 9 tonight, continues at 8 p.m. tomorrow, and concludes at 3 p.m. Sunday. It marks the end of a rough early season non-conference schedule that has seen the Lions drop six games by one run, most recently last weekend losing two out of three to Furman.

"This past weekend, we played 25 good innings and had two bad innings cost us two games, so that's how close we are," Wine said. The Lions gave up six runs in the sixth inning of an 8-4 loss and four runs in the fourth inning of a 7-5 defeat. "At least we're condensing it to one inning. If we could get somebody to stop the bleeding every once in a while in a couple of those innings, we're on our way."

Arizona State (18-7) is the second of eight teams from last season's College World Series that Penn State has faced this season. The other was No. 14 Tulane, who swept the Lions in a three-game series in mid-February.

Since that season-opening series, the Lions' lineup has changed several times, but Wine said the players that take the field this weekend and those that come off the bench, should be comfortable in their roles leading up to next week's Big Ten opener at Minnesota.

"Unless there is an injury somewhere along the line, our starting lineup will be set. Guys will settle in and not feel the pressure of having to get a hit to stay in the lineup the next day," Wine said. "We've been communicating all along, but there's still that edge of, 'Hey, I gotta get a couple hits here or I'm not going to play.' And it's not like that. We just said, 'Everybody win jobs,' and that's what they did."

The results of the early season competition is a starting lineup that features two freshmen and three sophomores. Third baseman Scott Gummo and left fielder Lance Thompson are the lone seniors starting in the field. Alan Stidfole (1-1, 3.26 ERA) is the only senior starting pitcher.

Gummo believes that despite the losses, the Lions still have the potential to beat nationally ranked opponents like Arizona State.

"It's frustrating that we can't pull a couple of them out. We don't know what it is, but on the other hand, the whole team has their heads up," Gummo said. "We're going to turn it around sooner or later. I think, honestly, we could take all three of them [this weekend] but it's kind of hard to do on the road."

The team flew to Tempe yesterday afternoon and planned to get on the field this morning to get a feel for the atmosphere prior to tonight's game.

"It's tough to win in Tempe. I've been there as a player and a coach and it's a tough place to play," Wine said. "But we'll battle through these things, and, hopefully, once again, it's another step towards conference play."

Can I get a home game?

Wednesday's scheduled home opener against Bucknell was rescheduled for April 25. The Lions will now play 25 games on the road before their first home game against Iowa on April 7.