Indiana Sweeps Purdue, Keeps Big Ten Baseball Title Hopes Alive
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana remained perfect in May on Sunday, winning their seventh straight game this month with another easy 10-2 win over in-state rival Purdue, capping a three-game series sweep.
Indiana is now 38-14 overall and 15-6 in the Big Ten, with one three-game series remaining at Michigan State next week. They are tied for the Big Ten lead with Maryland and control their own destiny now, something they couldn't have imagined two weeks after getting swept at home by the Terrapins.
It's all in their hands now.
The Hoosiers set a school record for most runs in a three-game series against Purdue, scoring 51 runs on the weekend. They struck early and often on Sunday as well, scoring three times in the second, four in the third and three more in the fourth inning.
Third baseman Josh Pyne was the hitting star, going 3-for-4 with five RBIs. He homered in the second inning on a line shot to left-center that stayed under the wind.
"I hit it and I really was like I thought it was going to be off the wall and try to get on two. It was awesome it went over,'' Pyne said. "The work that (Mercer) and I have put in the past couple of weeks is really paying off.''
Pyne said this winning streak is a byproduct of focusing on the moment. Losing to Maryland was a shocker — especially getting outscored 43-12 at home with the Big Ten lead at stake — but they quickly moved on, too. They all knew there was plenty of baseball still to play, Pyne said.
''I don't want to say we needed to lose, because I never want to lose, but we needed to realize what real baseball looked like,'' Pyne said. "For us, it's going to take offense clicking, pitching clicking and everything firing on all cylinders. We've done that since the Maryland series and we're playing really good baseball.''
Indiana's bats have been on fire all weekend. The Hoosiers won 26-11 on Friday and 15-3 on Saturday. That's 41 runs, with 12 home runs in two days. The wind was blowing in hard on Sunday, and Pyne hit the only homer.
But they scored 10 runs anyway, and ''were relentless again all the way across the board,'' Mercer said. "We never let up, never took our foot off the gas. And you like to see that this time of year.
"All year long, you go through workouts and training and games, and you talk about wanting to play your best baseball at the end of the year. We played excellent baseball weekend. It was probably our best weekend of the year.
Winning the Big Ten is a goal that matters, and the Hoosiers would like to do that this week. After a mid-week game at home against Evansville on Tuesday, the Hoosiers finish the regular season on the road at Michigan State, with a three-game series that starts on Thursday night.
They control their own destiny now. Keep winning, and a Big Ten title is theirs. Michigan State is 29-18 on the season and 10-10 in the Big Ten, but they are 14-3 at home.
Mercer is pleased that the Hoosiers' pitching plans ''worked to perfection'' all weekend and is comfortable that his most important arms should feel good and be ready to go all week.
He was thrilled that senior Ty Bothwell came him three solid innings to start, allowing just two runs. ''All we asked to do was get through the order one time, and he did a great job of that,'' Mercer said. ''It set us up perfectly. Craig (Yoho) was terrific and Ben (Seiler) and Connor Foley did a great job, too. I couldn't have asked for anything more.''
The Hoosiers' bullpen threw six scoreless innings and allowed only one Purdue hit. The Boilermakers are now 23-27 on the season and 10-11 in conference play.