5/23/2018 baseball Edit

Purdue rallies to win tourney opener behind Andrews' complete game

Kyle Charters • BoilerUpload

Staff Writer

OMAHA, Neb. — Purdue feels slighted.

Although the Boilermakers finished second in the Big Ten, they think there’s a level of disregard for their accomplishments this season. Perhaps so, considering Purdue did have only four All-Big Ten representatives, and all on the third team.

But the Boilermakers (35-18), who were picked to finish 11th in the Big Ten by coaches in the preseason, are using it as fuel. They did so Wednesday in the opener of the Big Ten Tournament, rallying from an early deficit to beat seventh-seed Ohio State 8-2 in TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha. They’ll play third-seed Michigan at 6 p.m. ET Thursday.

“A lot of us are pretty insulted and have a chip on our shoulder and a lot to prove, especially when they picked us to finish 11th,” junior Evan Warden said. “We finished second and still didn’t get anybody on the second or first team.”

Purdue won Wednesday the way it has frequently of late — the Boilermakers have won 19 of their last 21 to surge into the postseason — with good pitching, solid defense and timely hitting. The first was led by senior starter Tanner Andrews, who settled down after allowing two first-inning runs to give up only six hits in a complete game, the second of his career.

“He was outstanding,” Coach Mark Wasikowski said. “To be able to show up and do what he’s done. As a senior, he obviously cares and cares deeply. He’s looking for respect and isn’t saying, ‘Hey, just give it to me.’ He’s saying, ‘Here, I’ll earn the respect that I’d like to get.’ It’s really big for him. It’s an indication of the ballclub.”

Andrews, who pitched 7.1 shutout innings to beat Michigan Thursday at Alexander Field in his previous start, induced 14 ground ball outs, several on excellent plays by middle infielders Harry Shipley and Tyler Powers. Andrews, a right-hander, also struck out seven with only one walk, getting 27 outs on only 109 pitches.

“The first inning, I was falling behind hitters and putting them in good-hitting counts, and that’s a good hitting team,” Andrews said. “If you put them in good-hitting counts, they’re going to make you pay and that’s what they did in the first inning. After that I really tried to pitch ahead, use a three-pitch mix. Once (you do that), it’s a lot easier to keep them off balance and guessing.”

A two-run double by Tyler Cowles gave OSU (34-20) a 2-0 lead in the first inning. But it was all Boilermakers after, a reversal of the last matchup between the two teams; then, in the regular-season series finale May 13, the Buckeyes scored 15 unanswered in a 16-6 win.

Purdue started its rally in the third, when Warden doubled and Powers singled. Shipley followed with the first of his career-high tying five RBI, then the Boilermakers tied the game on a fielding error following Nick Dalesandro’s single. After taking the lead in the fifth on Shipley’s second RBI, Purdue busted the game open in the sixth.

After plating two more runs to chase lefty starter Conner Curlis, Shipley drove a ball hard into the right centerfield gap off reliever Kyle Michalik, clearing the bases and putting the Boilermakers up 8-2.

“I was just looking to put something hard in play and he gave me a pretty good pitch to hit and I squared it up pretty well,” Shipley said.

It was plenty for Andrews, who retired 11 straight batters (seven on groundball outs), before hitting the first batter of the ninth. But his outing, in combination with the Boilermakers’ defense — it had two errors, but multiple other well-played outs in the middle infield — was a good recipe.

“Pitching and defense, that’s how we’ve done it,” Wasikowski said. “And timely hitting with execution. It’s not a secret. It’s hard to get teams to do that and right now it seems like we’re doing that on a fairly regular basis and we’re being selfless. It’s something that’s proven to turn into the identity of our ballclub.”

Now, Purdue moves on to Michigan, which it swept in the regular-season series finale at Alexander last weekend. It can do so feeling like it has a chance to continue moving on in the Big Ten Tournament, but with a strong feeling it has also done enough to get into the NCAA.

With the win Wednesday, Purdue’s RPI is up to 35, per D1baseball.com.

“We’ve got a very good résumé,” Wasikowski said. “I think it would be hard to leave us out. But right now, I’m not thinking about NCAA Tournaments and stuff like that. We’re here to win this Tournament. It means an awful lot to us. We’re not just participants. We’re not an 11th-place baseball team, or whatever anyone wants to say.

“Bottom line is we’re going to show up, we’re trying to win the Tournament and prove people wrong, whether it’s in our league or across the country, and the best way to do that isn’t with your mouth, it’s with your play and we showed up today the right way and hopefully we can do that (Thursday).”

Notes: Powers (ankle) returned to Purdue’s lineup after a one-game absence to go 2-of-3, with two runs scored and a walk. … Warden, with eight stitches in his lip after taking a hard liner to the face Saturday, was also 2-of-3 with a double, an RBI and two runs scored. … Jacson McGowan broke out of an 0-of-23 Big Ten slump to hit an opposite field single in the seventh. ... Andrews' complete game was Purdue's first in the Big Ten Tournament since Matt Bischoff vs. Northwestern in 2010. … Junior Gareth Stroh is the starter for the Boilermakers Thursday, likely vs. Ben Dragani. In the first matchup between the two lefties this season, Purdue rallied from down 3-1 to beat the Wolverines 6-3. … Michigan beat Iowa 2-1 in 10 innings in the early game Wednesday, getting a walk-off on a sacrifice fly by freshman Jesse Franklin.

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