Northwestern baseball had an uncharacteristic weekend at home against a very good Purdue team. The 'Cats were swept at Rocky and Berenice Miller Park, suffering from poor performances on the mound and a surprising lack of run production.
Throughout this season, one thing has been consistent for the Wildcats -- they've been able to hit, even against quality opponents. In the middle of the order, the trio of Jack Lausch, Ryan Kucherak and Jackson Freeman have been fantastic run producers all season.
This weekend, though, those three players combined for just two RBIs, and the team only scored eight total runs. Given how bad the pitching staff has been this season, that's never going to be enough to win games in a series against another prolific offense. That's just the reality the Wildcats are in roster construction wise. They have to hit every week.
On Friday, Jake Rifenburg took the mound for Northwestern, and he actually performed pretty well, allowing four earned runs in five innings of work. He had the 'Cats in the game, trailing 4-3 going into the ninth inning behind a 2-RBI day from second baseman Noah Ruiz.
Then, the Wildcats promptly allowed SEVEN earned runs in the top of the last. Garrett Shearer, who allowed six of those runs, was mostly to blame. He'd thrown two scoreless innings before the ninth, so there's also some valid questions to be had about why he remained in the game for so long once things went sour.
The following day, Northwestern actually got a great start from Matthew Kouser, who pitched six innings of one-run baseball. But, the 'Cats couldn't get much of anything going on offense.
Kucherak hit a solo homer to take a 2-1 lead in the sixth, but the 'Cats went on to choke that slim lead in the ninth. Ryan Weaver allowed an unearned tying run, and then the game ended in the 10th after the Boilermakers took the lead off of Drew Dickson.
In the final game of the series, Northwestern had James Whitaker on the bump to start the game. After two pretty decent outings from starting pitchers in this series, NU's luck finally dried up. Whitaker allowed five runs on six hits in 4.2 innings of work. The bullpen immediately allowed more.
Before they knew it, the 'Cats were in a 6-0 hole entering the seventh inning. A couple RBI hits and a Lausch homer helped them claw back to 6-3, but Purdue pushed two more runs across the plate in the late innings to secure an 8-3 win.
Northwestern will be back in action Tuesday to take on UIC at home before traveling to Ann Arbor for a three-game set next weekend against the Wolverines.