After Oregon head coach Mark Wasikowski called out their “sloppy” play against Oregon State this week, No. 23 Oregon baseball (10-2) heads east to West Lafayette to take on a Purdue team that beat the Beavers 5-2 in February. With conference play kicking off Friday, the Ducks look to bounce back to their strong early season form. 

Even with the loss against OSU, the Ducks have the hot hand. A 10-2 start heading into conference play is solid, and they are currently tied for second in the conference with No. 1 ranked UCLA.

Pitcher Will Sanford has been lights out for Oregon, boasting a 0.00 ERA with a 2-0 record heading into the series. Sanford’s performance this season has been a huge improvement after coming off a less-than-stellar season in 2025, where he had a 6.39 ERA with a 2-2 record.

“(I’m) excited to go to Big Ten play, especially on the road,” Sanford said when. “I feel like I just have more trust in myself. I thought that was a big issue last year.”

Sanford will start the first game on Friday, with Collin Clarke and Cal Scolari starting the weekend games. 

On the hitting side of things, Ryan Cooney has gotten a base knock in every game this season, currently batting .358 with 10 RBIs, and is tied with Jack Brooks for most steals on the team with six. 

Cooney went 2-5 with a pair of singles earlier in the week against the Beavers and was one of the few players to get it going at the plate in that game. OSU also took notice of his baserunning skills and tried picking him off more than 10 times, something that will probably continue to happen to the speedster going forward.

Before the loss to the Beavers, the Ducks were in Las Vegas, where they put up 19 runs on the weekend, in large part to power hitter Dominic Hellman, who contributed two home runs over that three-game stretch. Hellman hit 13 home runs last season and looks to repeat that number with three balls leaving the yard already through 12 games.

It’s not just Hellman hitting home runs either. Freshman outfielder Angel Laya and senior infielder Drew Smith have four apiece, and junior infielder Maddox Molony has three. The Ducks are ranked second in the Big Ten in home runs with 23, two behind UCLA.

The Boilermakers are 8-3 heading into this matchup, with losses coming to  No. 11 University of Southern Mississippi and  surprising dropped games to Rice University and the University of Portland. Purdue has played some solid teams so far this season, but those losses stick out like a sore thumb.

Overall, the Boilermakers have hit .311 and held opponents to .271. Their starting rotation has been relatively weak, with three of their four starters boasting ERAs over 4.00. Comparatively, Oregon has two starters with ERAs under 1.00 in Sanford and Scolari, who is currently at a 0.64 ERA. 

Clarke has been the Ducks’ other go-to starter and is 2-0 with a 2.70 ERA, which is actually better than Purdue’s best starter, Austin Klug, who sits at  2.84. That isn’t to say Purdue has bad pitching; in fact, their bullpen has some solid arms. Thomas Howard has been the go-to reliever for the Boilermakers and has a 0.00 ERA through 9.0 innings pitched.

The first game of the series is set for Friday at 1:00 p.m. PST at Alexander Field in West Lafayette, Indiana.