West Virginia's Maxx Yehl throws a pitch against Xavier during an NCAA game in Morgantown. (AP Photo/Gregory Payan)

MORGANTOWN — Former West Virginia baseball player and current St. Louis Cardinals rookie J.J. Wetherholt played in his first MLB game locally against the Pittsburgh Pirates Monday night. Head coach Steve Sabins and some of the coaching staff made the trip up to PNC Park to watch the former Mountaineer.

Wetherholt didn’t disappoint and hit a home run in the top of the ninth inning to tie the game, leaving it to his teammates to win it. Sabins watched on in excitement.

The excitement from Wetherholt put a quick mask on the recent struggles of the current WVU team. The Mountaineers went 1-3 last week, which was by far their worst week of the season, which included their worst loss of the season, 23-1 to rival Pitt. After losing three, WVU fell to just No. 18 in the Division 1 Baseball rankings from 12, but dropped to 27 in the RPI. The hopes of hosting a regional are slowly slipping.

WVU has three weeks left in the season to get the train back on track, and it starts on Wednesday with a favorable matchup on the road against Penn State. The game is set for a 6 p.m. first pitch. The Nittany Lions are 12-29 overall this season, compared to the Mountaineers 28-12 record. Penn State sits at 200 in the RPI.

The Nittany Lions have won two of their last 10 games and were swept this past weekend by Oregon. It should be a nice landing spot for WVU to get back in the win column after losing its last two.

It starts with the Mountaineers pitching. Last week, the pitching staff allowed 40 runs over four games. The 23 runs against Pitt definitely didn’t help towards that stat.

The biggest factor is starter Maxx Yehl’s health. Yehl couldn’t pitch this past week, which threw off the starting pitching and the bullpen. Bryson Thacker started against Pitt in the Backyard Brawl, and then Ian Korn started on Friday for his first start of the season out of the bullpen.

Thacker didn’t have the best start and allowed three home runs. Korn pitched 4.1 innings, allowed three runs, five hits and struck out three, helping in the win. The bullpen was hurt in the final two games just because there was some exhaustion. Reese Bassinger, Chansen Cole and Carson Estridge all pitched in two of the three games against Cincinnati.

Getting Yehl back in some capacity would definitely help settle the ship. Sabins didn’t think the injury to Yehl would be long-term after the Houston series.

“Yehl’s test was really good,” Sabins said. “Little bit banged up, and he had some pain in his shoulder and a little pain in his bicep. But not in those target areas that you get really concerned about. We just need to make sure that we put Yehl in a situation where he gets on the mound, he’s got his best stuff.”

It helps even more that Penn State has the fourth-worst batting average in the Big Ten at .268, which would rank 12th in the Big 12. WVU’s pitching can get back on track against this offense.

WVU’s hitting slowed down a bit in the final two games against Cincinnati, and it wasn’t the strongest it’s been in the past four games. The Pitt game was deflating, and WVU had just two hits. The Mountaineers bounced back in the first game of the series and cooled off again in the final two games. WVU had 16 hits in the final two games and scored seven runs. The Mountaineers didn’t do the best at hitting with runners in scoring position, especially in the last game, where Cincinnati came back.

Penn State has a 7.87 ERA, which is the worst in the Big Ten and would be the worst in the Big 12. Like the pitching, the hitting should get the offense rolling again.

WVU should have a field day against Penn State in a must-need win out of conference. On paper, the Mountaineers should roll, but the last game was a close 3-1 win in Hagerstown, Maryland.

If WVU loses the midweek game, if there wasn’t panic building already, it’d definitely run rampant.