As the team practiced outside on its home field in 60-degree weather on Monday, Boss said there’s no place like home for his team during this time of the year.

“We always want to compete at home,” Boss said. “We love our ballpark. I think we got a pretty good fanbase that comes out to watch. You get a nice day in, I think — the best setting you can find in college baseball. You can’t help but get excited.”

Following a four-game week — including a mid-week game in Waco, Texas and three during the weekend in Port Charlotte, Fla. — the Spartans find themselves back at a .500 record to start the year.

The Spartans went 3-1 last week with wins against Baylor, Xavier and a 15-inning thriller win against Seton Hall before dropping the weekend finale against Pittsburgh. In the prior series, the Spartans were swept by then-No. 5 Texas A&M in College Station, Texas and struggled to beat a team that made the 2011 College World Series just a year ago.

“We’re kind of disappointed with how the weekend went, and I feel like our team (and) our hitters need to get better,” junior third baseman and center fielder Torsten Boss said. “I think this week, we’ll really work on it in practice, and we’ll go down and show we’re a good hitting ball club.”

The Spartans now have lost five games this season by two runs or fewer — including four one-run losses.

Senior shortstop Justin Scanlon said the team’s pitching — led by senior Tony Bucciferro — has been a strong point of the team early in the season, but the Spartans need to work on getting a timely hit and making plays in the field to win the close games down the stretch.

“Our goal going in was to win the rest of the games,” Scanlon said. “We came off a disappointing sweep at Texas A&M, and we wanted to get rolling heading into Big Ten season in a couple weeks here. So to go drop one on Sunday, that’s real tough. But what can you do about it, it’s baseball. We gotta bounce back.”