With sunglasses on, bat in hand, Penn State head coach Robbie Wine smiled widely while taking half swings at air.

Even after the Penn State baseball team's last game against Minnesota, a 9-2 defeat that lost the Nittany Lions their opening conference series, Wine was refreshed. The bright blue sky and watching his team take batting practice was almost enough.

Most importantly, Wine knew, midweek baseball was on the way. At 6:35 tonight, Penn State (5-15, 1-2 Big Ten) will have another opportunity to play, this time against Bucknell (10-11, 3-1 Patriot League) at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park.

At yesterday's practice, Wine sat outside of the cage and watched his players slap the ball through the empty infield. Some players were shagging balls in the outfield, but none running anything down with a sense of urgency.

Tonight's game, along with tomorrow's out-of-conference contest against Kent State, keeps the Lions' minds in order before another Big Ten series against Iowa this weekend.

"We need to get some guys to the mound. We need to get some guys at-bats. Midweek baseball is important," Wine said. "You have to win the games, but you also need to develop players, too. Develop confidence, and work on things you haven't been getting done in the early season."

Scott Gaffney, who missed a pitching start when the final game of the Minnesota series was called due to rain Sunday, will take the mound tonight. The bullpen will play a large role, as the start will be used to get Gaffney a few innings, but the coaching staff hopes to save him before for the finale of the Iowa series.

Wine said he will shuffle the order tonight to get the offense going because, "keeping it how it is, I've been trying that up until now, and it hasn't been working."

Going back to the last game of the Central Connecticut State series on March 25, a 2-0 loss, Penn State has averaged less than two runs per game in its last four games.

Looking at the Bison as an inferior intrastate patsy won't fly, either. Last season, Penn State defeated Bucknell, 14-6, in a game that was 8-3 after three innings.

With that Central Connecticut loss in mind, outfielder Brian Ernst repeated a familiar mantra.

"Any team can beat any team on any given day," he said. "That's why you play the games. You have to go out there with the same intensity and the same attitude and same plan, No. 1 North Carolina or playing a different team."

The fundamentals, as Wine said yesterday, are always important. As he demonstrated the right swing to a group including outfielder Rick Marlin, utility man Jim Leitgeb and his son, Cory Wine, Robbie held the bat still.

"That's where it is," he said, holding the bat right where it would make contact with the ball.

Wine said his team will only get better the more it plays. Despite a loss to the Gophers, the cream of the crop in the Big Ten, the Lions have only one track to follow.

That's to learn as they go. And midweek baseball is a perfect chance to do that -- giving Wine plenty of reasons to be upbeat.

"Batting practice today, get back to the basics, the things we have been talking about all along," Wine said. "You lose focus of the direction you were going and you need to get back on that same road, and that is what practices are for. That's what midweek baseball is for."