Purdue Baseball Update
The Boiling Point: Here’s a look at where Purdue’s baseball team is at this season.
Rendering of New Baseball Stadium
Today we have a guest columnist, last season’s Paint Crew president Tom Nielsen. When trying to figure out how to do a good update on the baseball team, while not actually being on campus, we figured why not get the student who has been to the most sporting events at Purdue each of the past two years and soon to be three in a row (tracked by VIP card)?
The Purdue baseball team is putting together a solid season this spring, sitting at 25-12 (5-4 in conference). The Purdue nine sit in a three-way tie for third in conference, one game behind Michigan State and Indiana. The top six in the regular season make it into the Big Ten Tournament at the end of the season in Columbus, where the winner will take the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Offense has been the name of the game for the Boilers, as they are averaging 7.76 runs per game, which is far and away the best in conference. This is especially impressive given the changes in what types of bats are allowable this year; home runs across the nation have decreased by about half under the new regulations. The Boilers have exploded for 10+ runs 12 times already and have been victorious on each occasion.
Individually, the Boilers are led at the plate by sophomore Cameron Perkins, who is hitting .374 with a .989 OPS and 4 HR. Sophomore Angelo Cianfrocco has missed some time due to injury, but in his 17 games he has put together monster statistics as well: .381 AVG, .619 SLG with 7 2B and 2 HR. Perkins has started off Big Ten play with a bang, hitting .474 with .816 SLG, good for best in conference in both categories.
Historically, pitching has been something of a weakness for the Boilers but improvements have been made this year. Junior Joe Haase (4-1, 2.49 ERA), senior Matt Morgan (4-1, 2.65 ERA, 1.18 WHIP), and sophomore Brad Schreiber (4-0, 1.10 WHIP, 3.80 ERA, 50 K in 47.1 IP) comprise the weekend rotation and have all been named Big Ten Pitcher of the Week this season. The bullpen has been reliable as well, leading Purdue to a 22-2 record when tied or ahead after 6 innings. Sophomore closer Nick Wittgren is holding opponents to a .246 AVG and has walked just 4 in 33 IP, good for a miniscule 1.03 WHIP, all at a 9.55 K/9 rate. Purdue leads the conference with a 2.62 ERA in Big Ten play, just ahead of Indiana at 2.85.
The Big Ten generally does not get any at large bids to the NCAA Tournament and given the parity within the conference it looks like that may be the case again this year. According to ESPN college baseball Bracketologist Jeremy Mills, there might be one at large bid to share between the Big Ten (Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue) and Big East (Connecticut, St. John’s, Louisville). Purdue’s early wins against Connecticut and Louisville will be important
come May. If Purdue takes care of business at Northwestern (11-21, 4-5) this weekend, they could make huge in-roads to a conference title and NCAA Tournament appearance with back-to-back series coming up against Indiana at home and at Michigan State.
Other Random Statistics:
-Cameron Perkins is on a 19 game hit streak, and a hit in his next game would make him the first Boilermaker with a 20-game hit streak since Brandon Haveman’s 26 game streak in 2007-08.
-Purdue is 13-4 with Angelo Cianfrocco in the line-up, who has just recently returned from injury.
-Purdue is outscoring opponents 88-23 in the first two innings, including 51-11 in the 2nd.
– Oddly enough, Purdue is 1-3 when hitting 2+ HR and 24-9 when hitting less than 2 HR.
-Fielding has been a major factor in many of the Boilermakers’ losses: Purdue is 8-8 when committing 2 or more errors, 17-4 with less than 2.
-Purdue is 16-0 when the opponent scores less than 4 runs, obviously a by-product of the strong offense.
Some national rankings at the beginning of this week:
Team:
HBP: 68 (5th)
AVG: .315 (15th)
RPG: 7.5 (17th)
SLG .447 (30th)
Individual:
Cameron Perkins (AVG): .377 (102nd)
Cameron Perkins (H): 57 (24th)
Stephen Talbott (R): 39 (31st)