The Illinois baseball team will take the field against Western Michigan in hopes of turning around its recent luck tonight at 6:30 at Illinois Field in the first of two games in two days against the Broncos.

After getting off to a promising start in their Big Ten opening series against Purdue last weekend, the Illini were unable to finish off the Boilermakers in the final two games and had to settle for a series split.

“When you win the first two games of the series you’re really in the driver’s seat,” head coach Dan Hartleb said after Sunday’s game against Purdue. “There isn’t a lot of pressure on you, but you never want to win the first two and drop the next two.”

The Illini pitching staff had limited its free passes in the first two games of the series against the Boilermakers, only walking one batter per game. But in the final two games of the series, Illinois pitchers walked a total of 15 batters and hit one. Of the 16 Boilermakers given free passes to the base paths, seven eventually came around to score.

“The main difference in the weekend was pitching,” Hartleb said. “The first two games we pitched well and didn’t give them a lot of free bases. If you look over the last two games, we put a lot of people on base and that set the tone for each game.”

Despite putting men on base, the Illini still had opportunities to bail their pitchers out of jams in the field, but were unable to make the plays, committing four errors and allowing seven passed balls in the two losses.

“We’ve had chances and myself included to make plays to help our pitchers out but didn’t do that,” sophomore second baseman Ryan Hastings said. “It’s kind of a two-way street. It’s obviously easier to go at it with the bases empty, but at the same time we have to be able to pick our pitchers up sometimes.”

Now that the Illini have recognized its areas of concern, Hartleb has hinted at a possibility for some changes to be made in upcoming games.

“We are going to have to look at some of our personnel and see which people we should start,” Hartleb said. “Everyone has a role they can fill. We just have to find out who the best starters are and have to find the niche where everyone fits in and can be productive for us.”

Illinois (13-8, 2-2) will send junior pitcher Jake Stewart to the mound for his first start of the season in the opener against Western Michigan (11-11, 1-5). The Broncos beat the Illini in two slugfests last season 12-10 and 22-15, but have lost their last five games heading into tonight.

“Western Michigan will come out with a lot of intensity,” Hastings said. “We’re going to have to come out and play well. We have to protect our house, something we didn’t do the last two games.”