Box Score: PDF / HTML // Photo Gallery
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Eastern Michigan scored the game-tying and go-ahead runs with two outs in the ninth and 10th innings, respectively, dealing Purdue baseball its fourth straight one-run loss 6-5 Tuesday afternoon at Alexander Field.
The Boilermakers (4-25) led 5-2 entering the seventh inning but ended up losing in extra innings for the second time in the last six games. Five of those six defeats have been one-run affairs and for the season Purdue fell to 2-12 in games decided by two runs or fewer. The Boilermakers had not lost in extra innings at home since April 2014.
Four of the 11 runs in the game were scored on squeeze bunts, both teams executing a pair of squeezes successfully. The Eagles (13-16) also ran into an out at the plate on a failed suicide squeeze with Purdue leading 5-4 and one out in the top of the eighth. It was the third of three runners the Boilermakers cut down at the plate.
Marquise Gill delivered the go-ahead single for EMU with two outs in the 10th inning, singling to right field with Max Scheumann at second base. An inning earlier, a slow roller behind second base off the bat of Jackson Martin allowed the tying run to score after Cody Strong was unable to step on the bag before Mitchell McGeein slid in safely.
The Boilermakers' leadoff man reached base safely in nine of the 10 innings, all but the bottom of the fifth, but only came around to score three times. Purdue was 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position for the day, both of those hits being of the infield variety.
Brett Carlson posted his first four-hit game as a Boilermaker, leading off an inning with a hit three times. He opened the bottom of the 10th inning with a single, but was stranded at second base as the potential tying run. Brian Ghiselli surrendered just one earned run over a career-high five innings of relief. He put up four consecutive zeroes to begin his outing.
Jack Picchiotti executed both squeeze bunts for Purdue, coming up with an RBI single with an unconventional two-out bunt in the fourth inning. Picchiotti reached base safely in each of his first three plate appearances, but lost a full-count battle with EMU pitcher Sam Delaplane (3-2) in a long final at-bat to end the game.
Strong doubled for the fourth time in the last five games. Harry Shipley extended his reached base safely streak to nine straight games with a single in the eighth inning.
Alec Olund drove in a run in each of his first two at-bats, delivering a sacrifice fly to score Carlson after Strong's double in the fourth inning. But Olund dropped a fly ball while battling the sun in right field in the ninth inning and the additional out helped EMU score the game-tying run.
Tanner Schumacher hit the nine-hole hitter to begin the top of the ninth, but was able to prevent the visitors from taking the lead after they had runners on second and third with no outs and the bases loaded with one out. He came up with a key strikeout of EMU's No. 2 hitter and got some help from Carlson when the third baseman snared a line drive for the second out.
EMU's failed walk-off play with runners on the corners and one out in the first inning, and a fortunate carom back to home plate on a wild pitch off the backstop three frames later led to the other two outs at home plate that Purdue recorded.
The Eagles successfully executed consecutive squeeze bunts while taking an early 2-0 lead in the top of the second.
Purdue returns to action Friday when it opens a three-game Big Ten series against Michigan State. MTCsports.net will be offering free video webcasts of games one and three of the series. First pitch Friday is slated for 6:30 p.m.