Even though the Spartans won’t face quite the national pressure of Tom Izzo and his team this weekend, head coach Jake Boss Jr. expects him team to play well in the team’s last series of a 17-game road trip to start the season.

“Cincinnati is going to be a good ball club — they’re playing well right now,” Boss said. “They’re gonna be a team — they’re aggressive, they like to run. They have guys that make their lineup go, and they’re pitching it pretty well too, so we’re going to have to go down there and play well.”

MSU holds a 6-2-0 edge in the all-time series with most of the games in the series coming in or before 1971. These teams last met on Feb. 20, 2011, where the Spartans edged Cincinnati 8-4 in eight innings during the Big East/Big Ten Challenge.

The Spartans enter the series with the fifth best record in the Big Ten and have won five of their last 10 games on the road. But the Spartans have lost five of their games this season by two runs or fewer, and senior shortstop Justin Scanlon said the offense will need to get rolling to climb in the conference standings.

Despite the strong start of junior outfielder Jordan Keur (.393 average, six RBI’s) and junior second baseman Ryan Jones (.377 average, two home runs, nine RBI’s), the Spartans have a combined average of .267 and have struck out 114 times as a team in 14 games this season.

“Our pitchers are keeping us in the game, but we’ve got to get that timing, that hit that drives in a two-out RBI,” Scanlon said. “We’re just missing on those sorts of things. Hopefully things start to click this weekend.”

Led by senior pitcher Tony Bucciferro, the Spartans’ pitching staff has been a major positive early in the year, Boss said. Bucciferro — who is 2-1 on the season with a 4.74 earned run average — leads a staff that has held opposing hitters to a .239 average this season.

Pitching will need to be at a premium this weekend to shut down Bearcat outfielders Justin Glass and Braden Kline, who each hit .326 and drove in 76 combined runs last season.

“From the pitching side of it, we’re really throwing well, and that’s encouraging,” Boss said. “We’ve pitched it really, really well, and I can’t state that enough. From the starters to the bullpen guys to our closer, we’ve really pitched well, and it’s giving us a chance to win.”

With just a weekend to play before returning home next weekend for the season home opener at McLane Baseball Stadium at Kobs Field to open up a three-game set with Oakland, the Spartans will look to finish their road trip on a high note this weekend in Cincinnati.

“I’m looking forward to it,” junior third baseman and center fielder Torsten Boss said. “I feel like our team, our hitters need to get better, and I think this week we’ll really work on it in practice and really go down and show that we’re a good ball club.”