Despite his team giving up 86 runs in nine games last week, Penn State baseball coach Robbie Wine learned something about his pitching staff -- it's better than he thought.
Though the team gave up an average of 10.9 runs per game in last week's seven-straight losses, Wine said those games allowed him to work more pitchers into the rotation than he originally planned.
And, for the most part, he liked what he saw.
"The competition last week was just a week or two ahead of us," he said, "but falling behind early ended up giving me the chance to get some other guys out on the mound and see what they could do."
So far this season, Penn State (4-8) has used 12 different pitchers -- not including one-inning appearances by position players Joey DeBernardis and Steve Snyder -- and six different starters.
And sophomore Ryan Ignas, who has started three games and leads the team with 13 strikeouts, said having that many pitchers get some innings in last week will help the team down the road.
"We've got the butterflies out of the way now," he said. "There's always room for improvement and with more time, more innings and more outings. We have some good experience already this year and, pitching-wise, we'll be all right."
But whether it's because of early season butterflies or the level of competition, the fact remains Penn State pitchers still have more walks than strikeouts this season.
Nittany Lion pitchers have walked 60 batters and hit 17 others while striking out 56, but their opponents' pitching staffs have struck out 113 Penn State batters while walking only 38.
"It's been a little rough for our pitchers at times with our control," Ignas said. "The teams we've played have capitalized on every mistake, and that's what good teams will do to us if we don't improve, especially when it comes to walking guys."
Wine said control usually comes as pitchers throw more innings.
Also, the emergence of three freshmen -- Neal Herring, Steven Hill and John Walter -- during last week's Texas road trip will help take some of the pressure off some pitchers.
"Before the first game we didn't feel like our pitching staff was going to be deep at all," Herring said, "but coming out of the first few games we feel more comfortable with our depth. We'll be a lot better than we originally expected to be."
While Wine wasn't surprised by the early season performances of any of the three freshmen, he said he didn't expect all three to pitch with such poise in tough situations.
"The point of the spring trip was just to find out what we had," Wine said, "and going into this weekend, I know we have a pretty good starting rotation and some depth out in the bullpen."
