Purdue Baseball Fever

While the rest of the Purdue blogosphere has lit up with posts on Purdue's historic baseball season, your highly-esteemed bloggers at GoBoilers.net have been silent.  Are they so busy researching their next Where Are They Now that they're stuck in 2006 and completely clueless as to what's going on right now?  Were they boycotting the blog since their exposé of the Marcus White coverup was somehow not picked up by TMZ or Deadspin (or GBI)?  Would they rather let everyone else report the facts and then piggyback off their coverage to share their meaningless opinions?  We'll let you decide.

For those with their head up their Bloomington this past week, the Purdue baseball team has clinched their first Big Ten Regular Season Championship since 1909.  It's an outstanding accomplishment and a great way to send Lambert Field out on top, as the new stadium will surely be ready by next year's opening day. 

This weekend's series against a mediocre Iowa team offers the Boilers a chance to clinch the Big Ten outright with a win or losses by Indiana and Penn State.  IU and PSU are both 3 games back with 3 to play, but only Indiana has a chance to wrestle away the Number 1 seed from Purdue in next week's Big Ten Tournament.  Even if both teams tie, Purdue will almost definitely win the tiebreaker unless Iowa somehow sneaks into the top 6 teams (they'd need a lot of help, even with a Purdue sweep).  Check out the tiebreaking procedures here and see if you can come up with another scenario where Purdue doesn't get the number one seed - I couldn't.  Interestingly, each Big Ten team plays 24 games, and yet due to the iconic 3-game series, Purdue and IU did not play each other.

That's a lot to digest for something that has less than a 5% chance of happening.  Assuming our Boilers take care of business, we need to address an important issue: This has been a great run and it's amazing to be excited about Purdue baseball approaching the end of May.  However, might this team be a bit overrated?

I know what you're thinking: "C'mon man, let's just enjoy the run!"  (In my head, all of our readers talk exactly like Chris Berman on Monday Night Countdown).  But then again, when you heard that Purdue lost at home to Michigan on Sunday and then squeaked by Indiana State at home in extra innings on Tuesday, didn't you wonder that same thing?  I know I did.

However, while the Michigan loss probably shouldn't have happened, Indiana State is a good baseball team.  A VERY good baseball team.  In fact, as Purdue secured their 40th win on Tuesday night, the Sycamores were already a 40-win team with wins against Missouri and Indiana and are currently top 25 in the nation in runs scored and ERA.   They are also 4th in the country in Hit By Pitches, meaning they all probably hit like Craig Biggio.

So no, I don't think Purdue is overrated.  Many Purdue fans who are just jumping on the baseball bandwagon may not think a win over Indiana State is anything to write home about, but believe me, this Purdue team can hang with any team in the country.  Still not sure?  Then let one of the top national college baseball bloggers try to convince you.

If you haven't seen this Purdue team play, make sure to check them out Friday night at 7:35 pm on Big Ten Network.  And don't forget to clear your calendars for next Thursday evening as Purdue starts their Big Ten Tournament run on the same channel.

Let's win this thing outright! Boiler Up! 

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