Winner of eight of its last nine games, the Illinois State baseball team will conclude its home slate with a non-conference game against Northern Illinois on Tuesday before traveling to Northern Iowa for a crucial four-game Missouri Valley Conference series beginning on Friday.
Coming off a crucial 3-1 MVC series win over Indiana State last weekend, the Redbirds (24-18, 11-9 MVC) will look to keep the ball rolling when they square off against Northern Illinois (22-23, 5-14 MAC) in their home finale.
Since starting their conference slate 0-4 at the hands of Wichita State, the Redbirds have roared back to win 17 of 24 games, including 11 of 16 conference games. Since the WSU series, the Birds have claimed 3-1 series victories over Creighton, Southern Illinois and Indiana State while splitting a series 2-2 with conference-leading Southwest Missouri State.
The recent winning spree has catapulted the Birds from seventh place all the way up to fourth place, only two games behind Evansville and Wichita State in second place.
ISU head coach Jeff Stewart gives much of the credit for the recent surge to his improved pitching staff
Overall, the pitching staff has started to throw strikes on a consistent basis, weve always had the talent, however, now guys are piecing things together and were starting to see some success, Stewart said.
We need to have guys come out of the pen and throw strikes, were doing that now, but it wasnt the case early in the season when the team was struggling.
In addition to improved pitching, the Redbirds are starting to smack the ball around with authority on offense. Sparked by the top two hitters in the conference in senior Jared Dufault and junior Ryan Cantrell, the Birds are hitting .320 as a team, a figure which would rank as the fifth-highest team batting average in school history if the season ended today.
On paper it would appear that the high octane Redbird offense should have a field day against a Huskie pitching staff which boasts a 6.63 earned run average. The Huskies, who gave up 18 runs in a loss to the Birds in Dekalb in 2000, have allowed an average of eight runs over their last seven games.
The Huskies won their last two games to salvage a 2-2 series split against Toledo last weekend. The Redbirds have won 13 of 18 games at Redbird Field this year.
