For years, the club has been near or below .500 entering Big Ten play, needing a miracle run in the conference to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. But with a 22-6 record for one of the best starts in school history, every win counts toward a possible at-large bid to the tournament in June.

“Coach Boss changed the approach of the midweeks last year, just saying we should win all those games,” junior pitcher A.J. Achter said. “We should never lose to a Central or Western or Eastern. While they’re all good ball clubs, we’re Michigan State. We should be able to beat those teams. This year, it’s even more of a valuable thing because we’re fighting for an at-large bid.”

In the conference, the Spartans (22-6 overall, 4-2 Big Ten) are tied for first place with Michigan and Ohio State, which comes to
East Lansing for a three-game set this weekend.

But on Wednesday, they’ll head to Kalamazoo to take on Western Michigan (5-24, 1-8 MAC entering Tuesday,) which has the worst record in both MAC divisions.

“Playing on the road is never easy,” MSU head coach Jake Boss Jr. said. “Western is going to be ready to play. They’ve struggled a little bit at the start of the season, but I told our guys the other day, ‘Don’t be fooled by the numbers because they have some good athletes over there and are certainly very capable of putting it together in a hurry.’ We need to be ready to play.”

The Spartans are coming off a series win at Minnesota this weekend, although they dropped the Sunday series finale 6-3. In the USA Today/ESPN Top 25 coaches’ poll, they’re the fourth team receiving votes.

“It’s important to get momentum going into the weekend with a big series against Ohio State coming up,” Boss said. “You never like to lose. I wanted to play yesterday, to be honest with you, and get back out here.”

The Spartans lead the conference in team ERA (4.50) and team fielding percentage (.983,) with the second-best team batting average (.335.)

The Broncos are batting .271 this season and are allowing a .352 opponents’ average.

They allowed an average of 14.2 runs per game in their past five contests entering Tuesday, all losses. The Spartans have averaged 11.17 runs per game in their past six ball games.

Before the Spartans look ahead to their series against the Buckeyes this weekend, they’ll be looking forward to taking care of the Broncos along the way to hopefully securing an at-large tournament bid.

“We do get a little more pumped up for these games because we have a chance
for an at-large bid,” Boike said.