MSU baseball falls at Purdue, 5-2

West Lafayette, Indiana - The Michigan State baseball team fell to Purdue, 5-2, in the series finale on Sunday afternoon in West Lafayette, Indiana. The Spartans are now 25-7 on the season and 7-2 in the conference. MSU took the series with a 5-3 victory yesterday and have now won each of its first three Big Ten series to start the season.

MSU took the lead briefly with a two-run fifth inning, but Purdue responded with runs in the next three innings to gain control. With MSU trailing 1-0, Kris Simonton singled to start the rally and came around to score on a Matt Byars double. Byars then scored on a Marty Bechina squeeze bunt executed perfectly to give the Spartans the lead.

Simonton and Byars each led the offense with two hits each and the 7-9 hitters in the lineup had six of the eight Spartan hits on the day.

The Boilermakers tied things right back up on a bases loaded wild pitch in the fifth before taking the lead for good in the sixth. Brett Carlson hit a three-run homer to start the inning and put Purdue up 3-2 on the second solo shot of the day by the Boilers. Purdue then added two more in the seventh on a pair of RBI singles to extend the lead to its final, 5-2.

Starter Walter Borkovich took the loss and is now 4-2 on the season. Shane Bryant earned the win for the Boilers, going five innings, allowing two earned runs and striking out seven.

“Same as last Sunday - bad effort at the plate and we need to be better on the mound,” said head coach Jake Boss Jr. “It’s got to be a 1-9 type of attitude and it wasn’t. It’s the same as the other games we get beat, in that we chased bad pitches and had bad swings. If you want to accomplish what we do, things like today can’t happen.”

Michigan State starts a six-game homestand on Tuesday vs. Notre Dame at 3:05 p.m. The Spartans will then host Western Michigan on Wednesday before welcoming Indiana to town for the next Big Ten series