Purdue baseball on historic streak, takes Big Ten lead

Purdue baseball will be riding into the summer hot. Like, don't leave the dugout hot.

In sweeping another Big Ten series, the Boilermakers (29-15, 11-4 Big Ten) will enter May in the Big Ten's top spot. They matched a program record with a 10th-straight conference win, with eight, nine and 10 coming against Northwestern over the weekend.

The Boilers were a metronome from the plate, scoring nine, 10 then 11 runs from Friday to Sunday, and kept runs off the board to outscore the Wildcats 30-13 in total.

Another number: Purdue hasn't trailed a conference opponent in 63 innings.

It's been a remarkable turn on the heel for Purdue, which was not picked within the top six projected teams in the Big Ten's preseason poll. The Boilers began 2-4 in Big Ten play, standing at 17-12 overall at the end of March coming off a 2-1 series loss to Ohio State.

Since then, they've torpedoed to the top of the standings by obliterating two teams near the bottom in Rutgers and the most recent Wildcats, but also 7-7 Michigan State, which they beat by a program-record margin for a three-game series.

Luke Gaffney, breakout redshirt-freshman first baseman, said the rest of the team has embraced topping outside expectations.

"I think that mindset has gone through all the new transfers and freshmen that we got," Gaffney said. "I think this group of guys, we just we want to win, and we're gonna do what it takes to win."

Gaffney, himself, is the all-time freshman leader in total bases, runs scored and RBIs, and became the fastest Boiler to 50 RBIs since 2001 by three weeks. He just earned his fifth Big Ten Player of the Week recognition this season.

Gaffney has led a Purdue team that paces the Big Ten in runs. This is backed up by the major contrbutions of Connor Caskenette, who hit two long balls Sunday to tie Gaffney for the team lead, conference on-base percentage leader Camden Gasser and 1.000-OPS-man Logan Sutter. Across the lineup, it's difficult to find players who aren't contributing to run scoring, especially right now.

Purdue has won two Big Ten championships in its history, one in 2012 and the other before the Titanic sank in 1909.