Minnesota Blasts Purdue Baseball

The Sunday game between Purdue and Minnesota was cancelled due to rain. In hindsight, that might have been a good thing. That is the only way Purdue could stop the Golden Gophers from scoring runs at Alexander Field. Bad weather in the Twin Cities last weekend forced the Penn State-Minnesota series to West Lafayette since Purdue was on the road at Indiana. The Gophers earned a sweep by outscoring the Nittany Lions 32-8.

Coming back this weekend to face Purdue the bats were even hotter. Over two games Minnesota outscored Purdue 40-15 to earn two more wins before Sunday’s rainout.

Friday: Minnesota 22, Purdue 7

It did not take long for Minnesota to show why it is the best hitting team in the conference. They jumped on Tanner Andrews in the first inning for 5 runs on 3 hits and 2 errors. Purdue did get 2 each in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd to take a brief 6-5 lead through three innings, but Minnesota responded with a run in the 4th, 4 in the 5th, and 7 in the 6th to blow the game open.

All told, Minnesota pounded out 21 hits and took advantage of 11 Purdue walks and 2 hit batsmen. Purdue threw eight different pitchers and the only one that did not register an earned run was third baseman Evan Warden, who pitched a perfect 9th inning in his first career mound action as a Boilermaker. Ben Nisle had a pair of home runs for Purdue, but htat was about hte only thing that went well.

Saturday: Minnesota 18, Purdue 8

The hits continued from the start on Saturday afternoon. The Gophers led 3-0 after an inning and 9-1 after three as they wore out Gareth Stroh. Micah Coffey’s two-out, three-run home run in the first got them going. It was the forst of four him runs given up as The Gophers added 18 more hits to their 21 from Friday night. For the weekend Minnesota was 39 of 91 at the plate with 19 walks.

Nick Dalesandro drove in three runs in Saturday’s game, but no Boilermaker had more than one hit. Stroh was officially tagged for 9 earned runs in 3 innings, causing his ERA to balloon over 5. The Gophers scored at least two runs in every inning except the 7th and 9th. In five games at Alexander Field Minnesota scored 72 runs and went 5-0.

Obviously it was a very rough weekend for Purdue. The Boilers fell to 15-15 and 4-4 in the Big Ten. The wild swings in momentum continue, too. Purdue started 8-1, then went 1-9 over the next ten games. After falling to 9-10 on that stretch the Boilers won six in a row over Lipscomb, Valparaiso, Penn State, and Indiana. Since the win over No. 10 Indiana, Purdue has now lost five straight. There have also been four home games (one vs. Lipscomb, two v.s Oakland, and one vs. Minnesota) lot to rain in that span.

Purdue needs to right the ship with a midweek two-game home-and-home with Indiana State before going to Maryland next weekend. The Sycamores will enter at 17-13, but have lost 5 of their last 7. Purdue visits Terre Haute Tuesday night and the Trees come to Purdue on Wednesday.