Weekend Series Between Indiana, Purdue Baseball Crucial to Big Ten Title Race

With three regular season series remaining, only one game separates the top five teams in the Big Ten standings.

Two of those are in-state rivals Indiana (25-18-1, 10-5) and Purdue (30-15, 11-4), which will play a three-game series from Friday through Sunday at Alexander Field in West Lafayette, Ind. It’s a matchup between two of the Big Ten’s hottest teams, with the Boilermakers winning 10 straight conference games and the Hoosiers going 9-3 against Big Ten opponents in April with four consecutive series wins. 

Purdue and Illinois sit atop the Big Ten standings with 11-4 conference records, while Nebraska, Indiana and Michigan are all close behind at 10-5. Indiana plays Purdue, Nebraska and Michigan to end the regular season, setting up high-leverage matchups the rest of the way. Similarly, Purdue plays Indiana, Michigan and Illinois down the home stretch.

Here’s the weekend schedule.

Friday, 6 p.m. ET on BTN-plus

Indiana LHP Brayden Keyster (1-0, 5.17 ERA) vs. Purdue LHP Jordan Morales (6-4, 4.50 ERA)

Saturday, 2 p.m. ET on BTN-plus

Indiana RHP Connor Foley (4-1, 4.74 ERA) vs. Purdue LHP Luke Wagner (7-0, 5.04 ERA)

Sunday, 1 p.m. ET on BTN-plus

Pitching matchup TBD

Coach Jeff Mercer and the Hoosiers are coming off a dominant series sweep against Rutgers, winning 8-3, 12-6 and 18-6. The offensive outburst was led by sophomore outfielder Devin Taylor, who hit three home runs and improved his OPS to 1.048.

Indiana’s strong month of April was also thanks to junior outfielder Nick Mitchell and redshirt freshman Joey Brenczewski, who each hit over .410 and helped the Hoosiers average over 10 runs per game in their 15 games. Carter Mathison hit two home runs over the weekend against Rutgers and became one of seven Hoosiers to hit 40 or more home runs in a career. With eight more, he’d break the program record. 

Here’s a rundown of Indiana’s leaders at the plate.

Nick Mitchell: .371 AVG, 5 HR, 45 RBI, 1.075 OPS

Joey Brenczewski: .361 AVG, 3 HR, 37 RBI, .940 OPS

Devin Taylor: .349 AVG, 11 HR, 36 RBI, 1.048 OPS

Brock Tibbitts: .336 AVG, 3 HR, 32 RBI, .958 OPS

Tyler Cerny: .332 AVG, 8 HR, 50 RBI, .924 OPS

Indiana’s pitching staff was key to the series sweep against Rutgers, allowing six runs or fewer in each game. Drew Buhr and Aydan Decker-Petty stepped up with important innings out of the bullpen during wins on Saturday and Sunday.

If Indiana is going to make a run at the Big Ten title, it needs that kind of effort on the mound the rest of the way. The staff got off to a slow start this season, as it allowed 9.1 runs per game across a 17-game stretch from Feb. 27 to March 24, including seven games of at least 12 runs allowed. 

They’ll face a Purdue lineup led by Luke Gaffney and Connor Caskenette, who are tied for the Big Ten lead with 60 RBI apiece. Camden Gasser is second on the team with a .366 batting average, and he and Mike Bolton Jr. each rank top seven in the Big Ten in stolen bases. 

On the mound, Morales and Wagner account for 13 of Purdue’s 30 wins, and they’ve thrown nearly 30% of all innings this season. They’ll face Indiana’s lineup on Friday and Saturday, respectively. And while the Boilermakers are currently first in the Big Ten, they have not played any of the four teams just below them in the conference standings. 

This weekend series between Indiana and Purdue could go a long way in determining the 2024 Big Ten champions, a title the Hoosiers are striving to earn for the first time since Mercer’s first season in 2019.