GAMEDAY INFORMATION
Purdue (1-7) at No. 30 Indiana (7-1)
Friday, March 19 to Sunday, March 21 / BTN+
Series Opener: Friday, March 19 at 3 p.m. ET
Middle Game: Saturday, March 20 at 2 p.m. ET
Series Finale: Sunday, March 21 at 1 p.m. ET
Bart Kaufman Field / Bloomington, Indiana
PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS
Friday: Trent Johnson (Sr, RHP) vs.IU's Tommy Sommer (Sr, LHP)
Saturday: Calvin Schapira (Jr, LHP) vs. IU's McCade Brown (Jr, RHP)
Sunday: Jett Jackson (So, RHP) vs. IU's Gabe Bierman (Jr, RHP)
SERIES HISTORY
All-Time: Indiana leads 153-134-2
All-Time in Bloomington: Indiana leads 86-52-1
2020: Indiana 17, Purdue 2 (March 4 in Bloomington)
Last Series: Indiana won 2 of 3 (April 2018 in Bloomington)
Purdue's Last Series Win: Purdue won 2 of 3 (April 2017 in West Lafayette)
Purdue's Last Series Win in Bloomington: Purdue won 2 of 3 (May 2010)
First Meeting: Purdue 3, Indiana 2 (May 1888 in Bloomington)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue baseball begins its slate of traditional three-game weekend series with its rivalry showdown vs. Indiana while making a trip to Bloomington for the sixth consecutive season.
First pitch at Bart Kaufman Field is slated for 3 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. This year marks the first time in the longstanding series, which dates back to 1888, that the rivals will play a weekend series in the month of March.
The Big Ten's 44-game conference-only schedule featured all 13 teams playing four-game weekends over the first two weekends of action. Going forward, the only remaining four-game weekends left on the schedule are the three-team pods that were utilized to avoid open weekends since there is an odd number of teams.
The schedule makers did Purdue few favors with its draw over the first three weekends. The Boilermakers' first three opponents – Nebraska, Michigan and Indiana – have compiled the best combined record of any trio in the league. The Hoosiers have impressed with their pitching, surrendering just 15 runs over their first eight games. And even when they gave up a season-high five runs in game 3 vs. Penn State last weekend, the offense rallied for a walk-off in the bottom of the seventh on a three-run homer by Grant Richardson.
Indiana's McCade Brown earned National Pitcher of the Week honors for his 16 strikeouts over seven no-hit innings in game 2 of the series with Penn State on Saturday. Brown has started against Purdue in midweek action each of the last two years, but faced only a combined 12 batters due in part to command issues. With 28 strikeouts vs. two walks over his first 14 innings this year, he seems to have found the mechanics and release point that have unlocked the right-hander's potential.
Purdue has struggled with situational hitting while scoring a league-low 17 runs over the first eight games. Strikeouts have not been big issue, ranking 10th with 68 at the plate. But the Boilermakers are batting just .143 with runners in scoring position and are 0-for-8 with the bases loaded. With a runner on third and less than two outs, they've scored that runner in only four of 10 opportunities. Ben Nisle's three-run homer Sunday vs. Michigan accounted for three of the team's six two-out RBI over the first eight games.
Alexander Field and Bart Kaufman Field both opened in 2013. But in the years since, 11 of the 15 Indiana-Purdue games have been played in Bloomington. Due in part to schedule quirks related to Big Ten expansion, the Hoosiers didn't make their first appearance at Alexander until April 2017. They were the second to last league rival to play there – only Illinois went longer before its first appearance.
Then with last year's shutdown, Purdue lost out on another home series with IU; the Hoosiers were scheduled to visit Alexander the weekend of May 8 to 10. But not before playing a midweek game in Bloomington the first Wednesday of March. The schools had agreed to play a non-conference game at the opposite site of that year's scheduled weekend series. The Big Ten is not playing non-conference/midweek games this year.
MORE ABOUT RECENT SERIES TRENDS
• Location has played a big factor in the Indiana-Purdue rivalry in recent years. The Boilermakers won their final series at IU's Sembower Field in May 2010, but are 1-12 in Bloomington since Bart Kaufman Field opened in 2013. That mark includes losses to Nebraska and Maryland at the 2017 Big Ten Tournament.
• Purdue has won 12 of the last 15 meetings with IU away from Bloomington dating back to the 2008 Big Ten Tournament in Ann Arbor. Since the final day of the 2004 regular season, the Boilermakers are 17-4 against the Hoosiers in games played outside of Bloomington. But since 2008, IU is 14-4 against Purdue at home.
• Six of the last eight rivalry games in Bloomington dating back to 2016 have been either one-run affairs or decided in the ninth/extra innings. The only non-qualifiers during that stretch were one-sided wins for IU – 14-1 in the middle game of the 2018 series and 17-3 last year in the midweek meeting before the shutdown.
FAMILY TIES
• While there are always a lot of personal connections between the two dugouts when the Boilermakers and Hoosiers square off, this season's series features a couple of unique scenarios in that category.
• Most prominent is Purdue shortstop Justin Walker Jr., who played his first two seasons for IU before the Lafayette native transferred home to join the Boilermakers in the summer of 2019. Walker started at shortstop and hit safely in all three games of the 2018 IU-Purdue series in Bloomington, finishing the weekend with six RBI. Walker's dad Chris was a dynamic outfielder for the Boilermakers from 1997 to 2000.
• Meanwhile, the Toetz family from the Milwaukee area is also now invested in both sides of the rivalry. Haley Toetz is in her first year as Purdue's academic services coordinator. Her younger brother, Paul, is the starting second baseman for IU and has hit safely in each of his first eight games as a Hoosier after redshirting last season.
HUNTER IS BIG TEN'S ACTIVE LEADER IN HITS & TRIPLES, RANKS TOP 5 NATIONALLY
• With 227 hits and 11 triples as a five-year starter in center field for Purdue, Skyler Hunter is the Big Ten's active career leader in both statistics. He also ranks among the top five nationally (T-2nd in triples, T-4th in hits) among active players at the NCAA Division I level. On the hits list, the top three and the player tied with him at fourth have all played at least 15 more games than Hunter's 185.
• Hunter has recorded seven of his 227 hits at IU's Bart Kaufman Field and is slated to play his eighth, ninth and 10th career games in Bloomington this weekend.
SIMINGTON STREAKING EARLY
• Miles Simington enters the weekend riding a nine-game hit streak dating back to the finale of the abbreviated 2020 campaign. He's the first Boilermaker to hit safely every game of consecutive four-game series since Skyler Hunter did it at Cal State Northridge and Santa Clara on the 2017 spring break trip.
• This weekend in Bloomington, Simington is looking to become just the eighth Boilermaker since 2001 to open the season with a double-figure hit streak. Hunter owns the longest after beginning his sophomore campaign with a hit in 13 straight games. Purdue's longest hit streak (at any point in a season) since the move to Alexander Field in 2013 is 15 straight games by Zac Fascia late in the 2019 campaign.
PURDUE'S LONGEST SEASON-OPENING HIT STREAKS (SINCE 2001)
• Skyler Hunter – 13 in 2018
• Mitch Hilligoss – 12 in 2005
• Kevin Plawecki – 11 in 2011
• Barret Arthur – 11 in 2010
• Cameron Perkins – 10 in 2011
• Eric Charles – 10 in 2010
• Nick McIntyre – 10 in 2001
• Jacson McGowan – 9 in 2018
• Mike Coles – 9 in 2004
• Daniel Underwood – 9 in 2002
• Miles Simington – 8 in 2021
NISLE JOINS SELECT COMPANY WITH HOME RUNS VS. MICHIGAN
• Ben Nisle homered in consecutive games for the second time in his career in the final two games of the Michigan series. He had actually been the last Boilermaker to accomplish the feat, back in a March 2018 series at Tulane during the spring break trip. But Nisle joined even more select company by going deep for the fourth consecutive year and hitting Purdue's first home run of a season for the third time in his career. Nisle is the only Boilermaker this century to accomplish the latter feat. Over the last 20 years, only 14 Boilermakers have homered in four straight seasons.
Purdue (1-7) at No. 30 Indiana (7-1)
Friday, March 19 to Sunday, March 21 / BTN+
Series Opener: Friday, March 19 at 3 p.m. ET
Middle Game: Saturday, March 20 at 2 p.m. ET
Series Finale: Sunday, March 21 at 1 p.m. ET
Bart Kaufman Field / Bloomington, Indiana
PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS
Friday: Trent Johnson (Sr, RHP) vs.IU's Tommy Sommer (Sr, LHP)
Saturday: Calvin Schapira (Jr, LHP) vs. IU's McCade Brown (Jr, RHP)
Sunday: Jett Jackson (So, RHP) vs. IU's Gabe Bierman (Jr, RHP)
SERIES HISTORY
All-Time: Indiana leads 153-134-2
All-Time in Bloomington: Indiana leads 86-52-1
2020: Indiana 17, Purdue 2 (March 4 in Bloomington)
Last Series: Indiana won 2 of 3 (April 2018 in Bloomington)
Purdue's Last Series Win: Purdue won 2 of 3 (April 2017 in West Lafayette)
Purdue's Last Series Win in Bloomington: Purdue won 2 of 3 (May 2010)
First Meeting: Purdue 3, Indiana 2 (May 1888 in Bloomington)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue baseball begins its slate of traditional three-game weekend series with its rivalry showdown vs. Indiana while making a trip to Bloomington for the sixth consecutive season.
First pitch at Bart Kaufman Field is slated for 3 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. This year marks the first time in the longstanding series, which dates back to 1888, that the rivals will play a weekend series in the month of March.
The Big Ten's 44-game conference-only schedule featured all 13 teams playing four-game weekends over the first two weekends of action. Going forward, the only remaining four-game weekends left on the schedule are the three-team pods that were utilized to avoid open weekends since there is an odd number of teams.
The schedule makers did Purdue few favors with its draw over the first three weekends. The Boilermakers' first three opponents – Nebraska, Michigan and Indiana – have compiled the best combined record of any trio in the league. The Hoosiers have impressed with their pitching, surrendering just 15 runs over their first eight games. And even when they gave up a season-high five runs in game 3 vs. Penn State last weekend, the offense rallied for a walk-off in the bottom of the seventh on a three-run homer by Grant Richardson.
| TOUGHEST EARLY SCHEDULE DRAWS BY OPPONENT RECORD As of March 18 |
||
| Team | Opponents | Opponent Record |
| Purdue | Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana | 19-5 (.792) |
| Iowa | Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska | 17-7 (.708) |
| Penn State | Northwestern, Indiana, Maryland | 15-9 (.625) |
| Minnesota | Indiana, Rutgers, Illinois | 15-9 (.625) |
| Illinois | Ohio State, Minnesota, Michigan | 14-10 (.583) |
Indiana's McCade Brown earned National Pitcher of the Week honors for his 16 strikeouts over seven no-hit innings in game 2 of the series with Penn State on Saturday. Brown has started against Purdue in midweek action each of the last two years, but faced only a combined 12 batters due in part to command issues. With 28 strikeouts vs. two walks over his first 14 innings this year, he seems to have found the mechanics and release point that have unlocked the right-hander's potential.
Purdue has struggled with situational hitting while scoring a league-low 17 runs over the first eight games. Strikeouts have not been big issue, ranking 10th with 68 at the plate. But the Boilermakers are batting just .143 with runners in scoring position and are 0-for-8 with the bases loaded. With a runner on third and less than two outs, they've scored that runner in only four of 10 opportunities. Ben Nisle's three-run homer Sunday vs. Michigan accounted for three of the team's six two-out RBI over the first eight games.
Alexander Field and Bart Kaufman Field both opened in 2013. But in the years since, 11 of the 15 Indiana-Purdue games have been played in Bloomington. Due in part to schedule quirks related to Big Ten expansion, the Hoosiers didn't make their first appearance at Alexander until April 2017. They were the second to last league rival to play there – only Illinois went longer before its first appearance.
Then with last year's shutdown, Purdue lost out on another home series with IU; the Hoosiers were scheduled to visit Alexander the weekend of May 8 to 10. But not before playing a midweek game in Bloomington the first Wednesday of March. The schools had agreed to play a non-conference game at the opposite site of that year's scheduled weekend series. The Big Ten is not playing non-conference/midweek games this year.
MORE ABOUT RECENT SERIES TRENDS
• Location has played a big factor in the Indiana-Purdue rivalry in recent years. The Boilermakers won their final series at IU's Sembower Field in May 2010, but are 1-12 in Bloomington since Bart Kaufman Field opened in 2013. That mark includes losses to Nebraska and Maryland at the 2017 Big Ten Tournament.
• Purdue has won 12 of the last 15 meetings with IU away from Bloomington dating back to the 2008 Big Ten Tournament in Ann Arbor. Since the final day of the 2004 regular season, the Boilermakers are 17-4 against the Hoosiers in games played outside of Bloomington. But since 2008, IU is 14-4 against Purdue at home.
• Six of the last eight rivalry games in Bloomington dating back to 2016 have been either one-run affairs or decided in the ninth/extra innings. The only non-qualifiers during that stretch were one-sided wins for IU – 14-1 in the middle game of the 2018 series and 17-3 last year in the midweek meeting before the shutdown.
FAMILY TIES
• While there are always a lot of personal connections between the two dugouts when the Boilermakers and Hoosiers square off, this season's series features a couple of unique scenarios in that category.
• Most prominent is Purdue shortstop Justin Walker Jr., who played his first two seasons for IU before the Lafayette native transferred home to join the Boilermakers in the summer of 2019. Walker started at shortstop and hit safely in all three games of the 2018 IU-Purdue series in Bloomington, finishing the weekend with six RBI. Walker's dad Chris was a dynamic outfielder for the Boilermakers from 1997 to 2000.
• Meanwhile, the Toetz family from the Milwaukee area is also now invested in both sides of the rivalry. Haley Toetz is in her first year as Purdue's academic services coordinator. Her younger brother, Paul, is the starting second baseman for IU and has hit safely in each of his first eight games as a Hoosier after redshirting last season.
HUNTER IS BIG TEN'S ACTIVE LEADER IN HITS & TRIPLES, RANKS TOP 5 NATIONALLY
• With 227 hits and 11 triples as a five-year starter in center field for Purdue, Skyler Hunter is the Big Ten's active career leader in both statistics. He also ranks among the top five nationally (T-2nd in triples, T-4th in hits) among active players at the NCAA Division I level. On the hits list, the top three and the player tied with him at fourth have all played at least 15 more games than Hunter's 185.
• Hunter has recorded seven of his 227 hits at IU's Bart Kaufman Field and is slated to play his eighth, ninth and 10th career games in Bloomington this weekend.
SIMINGTON STREAKING EARLY
• Miles Simington enters the weekend riding a nine-game hit streak dating back to the finale of the abbreviated 2020 campaign. He's the first Boilermaker to hit safely every game of consecutive four-game series since Skyler Hunter did it at Cal State Northridge and Santa Clara on the 2017 spring break trip.
• This weekend in Bloomington, Simington is looking to become just the eighth Boilermaker since 2001 to open the season with a double-figure hit streak. Hunter owns the longest after beginning his sophomore campaign with a hit in 13 straight games. Purdue's longest hit streak (at any point in a season) since the move to Alexander Field in 2013 is 15 straight games by Zac Fascia late in the 2019 campaign.
PURDUE'S LONGEST SEASON-OPENING HIT STREAKS (SINCE 2001)
• Skyler Hunter – 13 in 2018
• Mitch Hilligoss – 12 in 2005
• Kevin Plawecki – 11 in 2011
• Barret Arthur – 11 in 2010
• Cameron Perkins – 10 in 2011
• Eric Charles – 10 in 2010
• Nick McIntyre – 10 in 2001
• Jacson McGowan – 9 in 2018
• Mike Coles – 9 in 2004
• Daniel Underwood – 9 in 2002
• Miles Simington – 8 in 2021
NISLE JOINS SELECT COMPANY WITH HOME RUNS VS. MICHIGAN
• Ben Nisle homered in consecutive games for the second time in his career in the final two games of the Michigan series. He had actually been the last Boilermaker to accomplish the feat, back in a March 2018 series at Tulane during the spring break trip. But Nisle joined even more select company by going deep for the fourth consecutive year and hitting Purdue's first home run of a season for the third time in his career. Nisle is the only Boilermaker this century to accomplish the latter feat. Over the last 20 years, only 14 Boilermakers have homered in four straight seasons.
| HOMERED IN 4 CONSECUTIVE SEASONS (SINCE 2000) | |||
| Player | Years | Season High (Year) | Career Total |
| Ben Nisle | 2018-21 | 7 (2018) | 11 |
| Kyle Wood | 2013-16 | 12 (2016) | 26 |
| Kyle Johnson | 2013-16 | 7 (2016) | 17 |
| Sean McHugh | 2011-14 | 4 (Twice) | 13 |
| Angelo Cianfrocco | 2010-13 | 2 (3 Times) | 7 |
| Stephen Talbott | 2010-13 | 2 (Twice) | 6 |
| Tyler Spillner | 2009-12 | 4 (2011) | 7 |
| Drew Madia | 2007-10 | 9 (2010) | 18 |
| Jon Moore | 2007-10 | 4 (2010) | 8 |
| Eric Osborn | 2004-07 | 3 (2004) | 8 |
| Neal Gorka | 2003-06 | 7 (2005) | 15 |
| John Hunter | 2003-06 | 8 (2004) | 15 |
| Daniel Underwood | 2000-03 | 12 (2003) | 25 |
| Nick McIntyre | 2000-03 | 11 (2003) | 15 |
| FIRST HOME RUN OF THE SEASON (SINCE 2000) | ||||
| Year | Date | Boilermaker | Game Number | Opponent |
| 2021 | March 13 | Ben Nisle | 7 | vs Michigan |
| 2020 | Feb. 15 | Kyle LaPlante | 3 | vs Hofstra |
| 2019 | March 2 | Ben Nisle | 10 | at Oral Roberts |
| 2018 | Feb. 17 | Ben Nisle | 1 | vs Western Michigan |
| 2017 | Feb. 18 | Mike Madej | 2 | at Texas State |
| 2016 | March 4 | Kyle Johnson | 7 | at ETSU |
| 2015 | Feb. 14 | Justin Gubser | 2 | at Western Carolina |
| 2014 | March 1 | Sean McHugh | 8 | at Samford |
| 2013 | Feb. 15 | Conner Hudnall | 1 | vs Connecticut |
| 2012 | Feb. 19 | Cameron Perkins | 3 | vs Notre Dame |
| 2011 | Feb. 26 | Angelo Cianfrocco | 5 | at Morehead State |
| 2010 | Feb. 26 | Cameron Perkins | 1 | vs Villanova |
| 2009 | Feb. 21 | Dan Black | 3 | vs South Florida |
| 2008 | March 10 | Eric Nielsen | 9 | at Kentucky |
| 2007 | March 2 | Jordan Comadena | 4 | at Western Kentucky |
| 2006 | Feb. 26 | Spencer Ingaldson | 2 | vs Kansas State |
| 2005 | Feb. 25 | Andy Dahl | 1 | at Florida Atlantic |
| 2004 | Feb. 29 | Mitch Koester | 3 | at Vanderbilt |
| 2003 | March 1 | Andy Rempel | 2 | vs Detroit Mercy |
| 2002 | Feb. 24 | David Harrell | 3 | at Texas-San Antonio |
| 2001 | Feb. 24 | Nate Sickler | 6 | vs Illinois State |
| 2000 | Feb. 20 | Erik Frei | 3 | at Vanderbilt |