By Mike DeFabo, CNHI Sports Indiana
WEST LAFAYETTE — You can hardly see the scar when Purdue ace Tanner Andrews pulls his cap down low. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still there. The 11 stitches that once traced his eyebrow are gone. What remains is the lasting image from a scary moment almost two years ago.

Andrews, at the time a junior, was pitching in an intrasquad fall scrimmage. The right-handed pitcher uncorked a sinker toward teammate Evan Kennedy. It didn’t sink much. Kennedy barreled the ball up and lined it back up the middle at Andrews.

“I can distinctly remember the laces of the baseball coming at me,” Andrews said. “It was like slow motion. You’re frozen and there’s really nothing you can do.”

The radar gun clocked the pitch at 91 mph going in and 101 coming out. Andrew tried to put his glove up, but he had no chance. The ball struck the pitcher squarely in the eye. He crumbled to the dirt in front of the mound. Blood poured out. The cut was so deep, his skull was exposed.

“It happened so quickly,” said catcher Nick Dalesandro, who was behind the plate. “I thought he might be dead. I’m not kidding you. That was one of the scariest moments I’ve seen in my life.”

Andrews was wheeled off the field on a stretcher and taken to Arnett hospital in an ambulance. The medic in the back of the ambulance radioed to a plastic surgeon, convinced the orbital bone was broken. Somehow, Andrews made it through the scare without any broken bones.

Doctors sewed up Andrews’ eye and diagnosed him with a concussion. For the next month, Andrews was confined to a dimly lit room, often with his mother and girlfriend by his side.

But his brain needed to heal in more ways than one. There were physical obstacles to overcome and also mental ones. How do you climb back onto a mound and stare down a batter just 60 feet, 6 inches away?

For the first bullpen session, Andrews threw with a protective screen in front of him. From there, he eased his way back, little by little. Finally, Andrews was ready to step back on the mound during another intrasquad game. He gave up a hit. Then a couple outs.

Then, Kennedy — the same player who hit that line drive — walked to the plate. Andrews got his sign. Then he stepped off the rubber.

“We both kind of looked at each other,” Andrews remembers. “He just kind of looked at me and smiled.”

The smile cut through the tension. From there, Andrews could just pitch. He ultimately struck out Kennedy with a fastball. He’s not sure what it was going in. But it was 0 mph coming out.

“That was the final hurdle,” he said.

Andrews has been off and running ever since.

Last season, he went 8-4 in 15 starts with 58 strikeouts. He was one of the key pieces behind last year’s dramatically improved Purdue baseball season. The Boilers won 19 more games than the previous year and went back to the Big Ten Tournament for the first time since 2012.

This year, Andrews ascended to the ace of the Boilermakers staff, serving as the Friday night starter to kick off Big Ten weekend series.

“Chairman of the board,” is how second-year coach Mark Wasikowski puts it.

Through 11 starts, Andrews carries a 2.10 ERA and leads the Boilermakers with 58 strikeouts.

The righty is at his best when he’s pounding the zone with a two-seam fastball that runs in on hitters’ hands, mixed with a slider away. The past two weekends, Andrews has done exactly that during two of his best outings. He pitched a combined 14 innings and allowed just one run in a pair of Big Ten victories over Maryland and Rutgers. In both games, he set the tone for what became weekend sweeps.

Now, as the season winds down and the postseason approaches, the Boilermakers have won nine of their last 10. The late-season surge has helped Purdue (24-16, 10-4) climb into third place in the Big Ten standings, behind Michigan (12-2) and Minnesota (11-3). Just three more weekend series remain before the postseason (vs. Northwestern, at Ohio State and home vs. Michigan).

When Purdue opens a three-game series against Northwestern on Friday, Andrews is in line for the start. He’ll pull down his cap over his eye. With the scar out of sight and out of mind, he’ll look in for his sign and ahead to the future.