Purdue is on a bit of a roll right now in baseball. It has won three straight conference series and after two midweek wins this week it is back at .500 overall and on a four-game win streak, it’s longest of the season.
On Tuesday Purdue hosted a pretty good Ball State team. The Cardinals entered at 23-12, but Purdue’s narrow 3-2 win was their sixth straight loss after a hot start to the season. They won the MAC a season ago but missed the NCAAs because they lost the MAC Tournament. CJ Backer had his best outing of the season with five scoreless innings. He gave up just one hit and struck out seven. Jackson Dannelly earned his first save with 2 1/3 scoreless innings to close the game. Purdue got its runs with a third inning RBI single from Couper Cornblum and two in the fourth thanks to a Paul Toetz double and a wild pitch.
On Wednesday Purdue got back to .500 with a wild 16-9 win over Butler. The Boilers took a big lead early with four in the first and seven in the third to make it 11-4. All told, Purdue finished the game with a season high seven extra base hits. Cornblum had a pair of doubles and Ty Gill added a triple. Cornblum drove in three runs while Toetz drove in four. Carter Doorn got his first win of the season with five innings pitched, but he was tagged for seven of Butler’s nine runs. Mike Bolton Jr. also stole three bases, and he is closing in on the school record for stolen bases. He has 67 in his career and need four more to pass Dave Scheitlin for the record.
This weekend the Big Ten gets significantly tougher as Purdue faces a Maryland team that is the defending conference champion.
Purdue (18-18, 7-5 B1G) at Maryland (23-14, 6-3 B1G)
Friday to Sunday, April 21-23 Bob "Turtle" Smith Stadium / College Park, Maryland
Series Opener: Friday, April 21 at 6:30 p.m. ET on B1G+
Middle Game: Saturday, April 22 at 2 p.m. ET on B1G+
Series Finale: Sunday, April 23 at Noon ET on ESPNU
PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS
Friday: Khal Stephen (So, RHP) vs. UMD's Jason Savacool (Jr, RHP)
Saturday: Jonathan Blackwell (Jr, LHP) vs. TBA for UMD
Sunday: Kyle Iwinski (Jr, RHP) vs. UMD's Kyle McCoy (Fr, LHP)
Maryland finds itself close to the NCAA Tournament bubble with an RPI of 56. They have a good win at Ole Miss and if they take care of business against Purdue they will go to Indiana next week for a huge series that might decide the league title race. They have won all three of their conference series 2-1 over Ohio State, Rutgers, and Iowa. The common theme in all three series is that they won the first two games, but dropped the finale.
Nick Lorusso is their top hitter with a .365 average. He leads the conference with 14 home runs and 62 RBI, making him a formidable bat in the middle of the lineup. Matt Shaw has an additional 13 home runs, and Maryland leads the conference with an impressive 71 home runs as a team. They are only in the middle of the conference with a .295 team average, but they have scored more runs than any other team in the league.
The pitching has been a disappointment, however. They had won of the best rotations in the conference last year in going 48-14 while winning the league and hosting a regional. This year the ERA has ballooned to 6.01, which is only better than Northwestern in the Big Ten. Jason Savacool is still a true ace with a 4-3 record and 3.13 ERA. He was a First Team all-Big Ten selection last year and an All-American by multiple services after going 8-3 in 16 starts. He is expected to go in the first five rounds of the MLB Draft at the end of the season. Last year against Purdue he gave up two runs over seven innings as Maryland beat Purdue 14-7.
The rest of the pitching staff has been a bit more suspect, as McCoy is 2.5 with a 5.59 ERA and Nick Dean has nine starts with a 2-1 record and 5.09 ERA. David Falco Jr. has been solid at the back end with five saves.
This is going to be an interesting series for Purdue. Maryland has an offense that loves to mash the ball, but Maryland has also given up the most home runs in the league with 60. This could be a very high scoring series, but all three of Purdue’s starters have had solid moments this year. Khal Stephen and Johnathan Blackwell are both 4-2 with ERAs under 5. Kyle Iwinski, when on, has been very good on Sundays as well. The Terrapins are the best team Purdue has faced yet in the conference, so getting a couple on the road would be very good with all the remaining league games coming in the state of Indiana.
