Game 1
Michigan State 8 Purdue 4
Starting Pitchers:
· Purdue — RHP Cole Van Assen (6-4, 5.79 ERA)
· Michigan State — RHP Aidan Donovan (5-3, 3.66 ERA)
What a difference a year makes. In 2025 Michigan State right fielder Parker Pico drops what would be the final out to end Nebraska’s season. The Huskers take advantage to not only win the game, but win the whole damn tournament and reach a regional. Back to 2026, Michigan State needs a Nebraska sweep of Minnesota to back in to Omaha, and this time Nebraska delivers. Michigan State gets in as the final seed, and at least as of Tuesday, they ran, and ran, and ran with it. (But let’s go ahead and relive the drop below, shall we?)
This year’s tournament however started on a beautiful, cloudy day with a “feels like” temperature of 41 at first pitch. (I swear the calendar said May when I checked this morning.). Despite the weather, the Michigan State dugout was red hot to start. Your friendly, neighborhood baseball writer was walking into the stadium as the first pitch was thrown and before I even found my seat, it was 4-0 Spartans. A walk to leadoff the tournament followed by an error, a squeeze bunt for a single, and 3 more singles had Purdue reeling and searching for a tarp.
Michigan State kept things rolling, adding 3 runs on 4 hits in the 2nd, all while ace Aidan Donovan held the potent Purdue offense in check. Donovan cruised all day against a team that was top 4 in the B1G in runs. The Boilermakers put up a couple garbage time runs on him in the 8th and he exited with 7.2 innings pitched and 6 strikeouts to go with 5 hits and 2 runs allowed. Purdue also left their starter in after things got out of hand, as no team has ever overcome a 7 run deficit in the history of Charles Schwab Field. That saves their bullpen for the next few days.
They added a couple more runs in the 9th to make it an 8 =4 game, but in a classic display of karma, Purdue is now 0-5 in games in the Big Ten Tournament since leaving the tarp on their field. Oh, and speaking of karma, Parker Picot got his revenge on this stadium as he blasted an absolute bomb to left that nearly cleared all the bleachers to reach Josh Caron-land. He’s on as big of a roll as one man can be, with 9 homers in his last 11 games. (Though he did have another mishap in right field in the 9th.) The Spartans could be an issue for this week.
Game 2
Iowa 10 Illinois 6
Starting Pitchers:
· Iowa — RHP Maddux Frese (4-2, 3.62 ERA)
· Illinois — LHP Regan Hall (7-6, 5.74 ERA)
An early mental error in the top of the 1st by Iowa got Illinois rolling. Iowa’s short stop had a chance to roll a double plays and erase all the base runners, but stepped over the top of 2nd base as he threw to first, missing the base completely, and leaving the Illini runner at 2nd. A single by the next batter brought him in for the first run of the game. Another single and sac fly (which also wouldn’t be allowed with the double play) brought in another. The wind carried a ball into the Illinois bullpen for a 2 run home run and made it 4-0, none of which would have scored with the double play.
Iowa did what they did all season and used a big defensive play to steal momentum back with a double play in the 2nd inning. They pounded out singles and used a big double to cut the lead to 4-3 in the bottom of the 2nd. They had runners on the corners in the 3rd and stole second on first movement of the pitcher. The pitcher threw to the first baseman who threw to second to try and get his runner out, which is exactly what Iowa wanted. The runner from 3rd scampered home as the throw to second was in the dirt. Tie game, 4-4.
Illinois seemed to get back on track, pushing a run across in the 4th. Then in the 5th, first baseman and probable runner up to Drew Grego for B1G Freshman of the year, AJ Putty sent a ball into the wind and still into the Iowa bullpen, pushing the lead to 6-4. Putty came up again in the 7th, and hit a tough ball to short who sailed a throw past the first baseman. Putty ran to second and Iowa’s first baseman threw a strike to 2nd as the second baseman faked like nothing was happening before reacting at the last second to snag the ball and tag Putty out as he was just walking into the base.
Again Iowa used that momentum to get their offense rolling. They put baserunner after baserunner on off one of Illinois go-to relievers, Sam Mommer. Two sac flys tied the game then gave them the lead. Then with 2 on and 2 out, left fielder Joey Nerat sent a no doubter over the right field wall for a 3 run bomb, giving the Hawkeyes a 10-6 lead, and just crushing any will Illinois had left. The Illini went quietly the rest of the way and will face Purdue Wednesday morning. Iowa will get the suddenly scorching Spartans in prime time, with the winner advancing to the championship bracket on Friday.
Game 3
Michigan 10 Rutgers 0
Starting Pitchers:
· Rutgers — RHP Vincent Borghese (4-4, 3.99 ERA)
· Michigan — RHP Cade Montgomery (3-1, 5.32 ERA)
As the 10-0 scored indicates, this was a one-sided game from the start. It was all Michigan and pitcher Cade Montgomery tonight as the Scarlet Knights showed absolutely no life in this run-rule shortened first round matchup. As the scoreboard showed when it was all over, Rutgers had one hit in the entire game, a 5th inning single by Ryan Jaros. They had two runners reach on walks and another who was hit by a pitch. Total Michigan domination.
Michigan jumped out to a lead in the bottom of the first inning Brayden Jeffries launched a solo home run to right field off starter Vincent Borghese. They added a second run in the third inning when lead-off man Cooper Mullens smacked a double and scored when Colby Turner followed with a single. In the meantime, Montgomery was mowing down Rutgers batters by pounding the strike zone with a variety of pitches.
In the fourth inning, the Wolverines scored two more on a Drew Culbertson two-RBI single. At that point, Rutgers was fortunate to only be down 4-0 as Michigan was putting runners on base. By the same token, it seemed that the boys from New Jersey were a bit fatigued after finishing their season in Chicago against Northwestern on Saturday and then busing to Omaha arriving late Sunday night.
After leaving the bases loaded and not putting a run across in the bottom of the sixth, Michigan exploded in the bottom of the seventh with six runs to end it. It started with a Jeffries single to left field off Rutgers’ third pitcher of the game, Dalin Harrison. Next batter up Evan Haeger smashed a two-run homer to left to make it 6-0 Wolverines. The boys from Michigan could smell blood in the water.
Before Haeger could high-five everyone in the dugout, Noah Miller followed with a dinger of his own into the Michigan bullpen in left field.
Matthew Ossenfort hit one off the glove of the Rutgers third baseman to keep the Michigan train rolling. Rutgers coach Steve Owens the brought in Henry Radbill to hopefully silence the Wolverine bats. That didn’t happen.
Dane Morrow singled through the left side to put two on and no one out. Radbill did get Gary Pace, Jr. to strike out but then he walked Culbertson to load the bases. He followed that up with another walk of pinch-hitter Jack Laffitte. The final nail ended up being a two-run single by first team All-B1G second baseman Colby Turner.
Michigan’s win was the third run-rule win in tournament history. They will play tomorrow in the 9:00 p.m. game against the winner of Ohio State and Washington
Game 4
Washington 0 Ohio State 0
Starting Pitchers:
· Washington — RHP Hayden Lewis (6-5, 6.13 ERA)
· Ohio State — LHP Sahil Patel (1-1, 8.15 ERA)
Ohio State’s Sahil Patel got off to the kind of start every pitcher and his coach wants to . . . striking out the first three batters you face. That and the energy level from the Buckeye bench stood out in the early going of the fourth game of Day 1 at the Big Ten Tournament.
Patel’s control left him a couple of innings later in the third inning. After striking out the leadoff batter, he gave up a single and walked two to load the bases. He then got another strike out before he walked yet another Huskie to give Washington the first run of the game. And then he walked another one to make it 2-0 Washington. At that point a handful of Buckeyes ran down to the bullpen. And then he found his strikeout pitch to end it.
Washington’s Hayden Lewis got off to a good start as well, not allowing a Buckeye to reach base until a Lee Ellis single in the bottom of the third. He scored on an Alex Bemis sacrifice fly to put Ohio State’s first run on the board. Henry Kaczmar, the B1G leader in doubles, hit a double to score Grant Mangrum to tie the game 2-2. Lewis bounced back with a strikeout to end the inning. Tie ball game.
Washington chased Patel from the game in the fourth inning and added a couple more runs off Luke Carroll by coming up with hits to knock in guys who had walked. Carroll mitigated the damage, but the Huskies were now up 4-2.
Back came Ohio State in the bottom of the fourth to put up two runs of their own to once against tie it 4-4. A pair of doubles by Dane Harvey and Mason Eckelman sandwiched around a walk to Maddix Simpson and followed by a Lee sacrifice fly accounted for the runs.
Hayden Lewis settled in on the mound for Washington after that and his offense put up another two runs in the sixth inning thanks to a two-run homer by Cason Taggart. Lewis then stopped the cycle of “I score two, you score two” in the bottom half and the Huskies were up 6-4.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Washington replaced Lewis with Gunner Nichols. Kaczmar led off with yet another double. Noah Furcht then drew a walk and that brought Ohio State’s best power hitter, Dane Harvey to the plate with two on and no one out. He moved the runners up 90-feet with a deep fly out to the warning track in centerfield. Nichols then inexplicably balked as he back foot slipped off the rubber and a run scored. Right after that, Simpson singled in the tying run. 6-6 going to the ninth.
Keeping with the two runs in an inning theme, Washington put up two more. Taggart led off with a walk off Jake Michalak. After a fly out, Sam DeCarlo reached on an error moving Taggart to second. That resulted in Ohio State bringing in Lincoln McVicker to face Colton Bower, who flew out to right for the second out. Up came Mic Paul with two on and two out. Paul popped up to the catcher Eckelman, who had it in his glove by ended up dropping it. Two pitches later he ripped a triple to the right field corner to score two. Washington went back up 8-6.
With the two run lead, the Husky closer Tommy Brandenburg came on hoping to seal the win. He did just that, punctuating it with a strikeout of Henry Kaczmar. The win was Washington’s first ever in the Big Ten tournament.
There are a couple of editorial notes that have to be included about this game. For tonight’s purposes, we will call this the Baseball Policy Report. Violation 1: Ohio State for using a pitching machine for infield. What? None of their coaches can swing a fungo? This is kind of like AI meets baseball. Just stupid! Violation 2: Purple and gold are great school colors. Purple jerseys with gold pants do not work at all as baseball uniforms. All purple or all gold maybe. These are just painful to look at.
Washington will take on Michigan tomorrow night at 9:00. Ohio State will face Rutgers in an elimination game at 2:00
Read the full article here
