2nd-straight sweep

The Spartans came into West Lafayette and were rocketed back to Michigan like a 100 mph fastball.

Playing to a near-capacity crowd on Saturday and Sunday, Purdue (23-13, 8-4 Big Ten) had little trouble with its weekend opponent Michigan State (14-19, 3-6 Big Ten) on either side of the ball, combining to down the Spartans 42-3 as it swept the series from Friday to Sunday.

The brooming pushed the Boilers into a three-way tie for second in the Big Ten.

The surge to the top has Purdue looking more schoolyard bully than conference pace-setter. The Spartans dropped to a tie for 11th place over the weekend, and the Boilers spoiled a spring weekend in Piscataway, New Jersey, for last-place Rutgers a week ago.

Purdue has yet to play a series against a top-four conference opponent and won’t before the semester ends. So the sun may well keep shining at Alexander Field, offering a distraction from finals in these final weeks of classes.

The Boilers can credit their scoring barrages in part to timely hitting. Junior infielders Chase Brown and Ty Gill combined for five RBIs in a part-time role, with Gill seeing three at-bats across the three games and Brown getting into the box once all weekend.

Mike Bolton Jr., the Boilers’ graduate center fielder, scored seven runs on the weekend but only recorded four hits. Rather than getting hits, he got hit, being plunked by the opposing pitcher seven times across the three games.

Altogether, the Boilers hit .389.

Game 3 (W 21-1)

Fans were treated to a 77-degree suntan session of a baseball game Sunday, but many were driven from the stands by the late innings of a game that resembled a game of catch in its repetitiveness.

Purdue scored in five of the eight innings it batted, while the Spartans didn’t hang a number in the scoreboard until the eighth inning.

Two arms split the primary pitching load, as junior righty reliever Carter Doorn and Jonathan Blackwell pitched seven innings altogether. The game was Blackwell’s ninth start, allowing the senior to bring his ERA under five to 4.58.

The visitors used seven pitchers altogether as they waded through the mystery of stopping Purdue. Across the weekend, the Spartans tried 13 of their 21 pitchers, with the last man up Sunday operating only part-time as a pitcher and spending the rest in left field.

Game 2 (W 14-0)

Michigan State starter Nick Powers started rocky Saturday, allowing three runs in the first inning, and his day couldn’t live past the second stanza as he exited after allowing three runs and two extra base hits from the first four batters he faced that inning.

From there, it was just about surviving for the Spartans, as Michigan State’s Harrison Cook pitched four innings in the meat of the game while sacrificing his ERA, allowing five runs.

Purdue’s mound seemed to rise a foot whenever a member of the black and gold stepped a foot on it. Luke Wagner, a senior lefty, tamed Sparty Saturday, pitching seven innings while allowing only four baserunners. The bat support behind him – 14 runs – let him claim his fifth win, tied atop the Big Ten.

Redshirt bat Luke Gaffney is third in the Big Ten in on-base plus slugging as a redshirt freshman, and kept up his hot start, which is fast becoming an excellent debut season.

Gaffney batted 3 for 3 on Saturday and went 7 for 12 across the homestand, bringing his average up to hitting .404. He’s one of four players hitting above the four-double-O conference-wide.

The Boilers put 14 on the board in total while Wagner, C.J. Backer and Griffin Lohman combined for a shutout while only allowing six baserunners all afternoon. Purdue bats again combined for three doubles, adding one home run.

The concrete behind the foul net was buzzing Saturday, and even the grass overflow seating down the third baseline was full of spectators. The attendance number came out to 1,754 total, up about 500 from colder, cloudier Friday.

Game 1 (W 7-2)

Left-hand graduate pitcher Jordan Morales benefited on Friday. The 5-foot-9 fireballer, who possessed an 89 mile per hour fastball out of high school, pitched nearly eight of nine innings, collecting six strikeouts to push his total to a Big Ten-leading 26 in conference play.

Morales’ pitching efforts were supplemented by 1.1 innings of clean relief from redshirt senior Avery Cook, who lowered his season ERA to 4.15.

Purdue pounced on Michigan State early to give Morales a lead to protect, with a three-run inning in the third, before pouring on three more in the fifth.

The Boilers had three doubles on the day and two home runs, giving the opposing outfielders plenty of work running around the 408-foot deep grass at Alexander Field. Keenan Spence, one of two Keenans on the team, hit a double and a home run Friday, adding three RBIs to make his total 24 on the season, in 32 games.

Purdue will be back in Alexander on Tuesday to take on Ball State (23-13) at 6 p.m. General admission tickets are $3, student tickets are free with an ID and the game will be aired on Big Ten+.