Illinois’ baseball team has been hot recently. They have won or split their last three Big Ten series and have climbed into fourth place in the conference standings at 12-12 (26-21 overall), with nine regular-season and eight conference games left to play.

Each week, each game, the Illini appear to win with a different style. Last weekend in Minnesota the style was offense. This weekend at Illinois Field, pitching was the name of the game.

Illinois’ pitching staff was as good as they’ve been all season in the first three games of the series against conference-leading Michigan. In the first two games, the Illini got a pair of one-run complete games from Matt Whitmore and Ben Reeser, while in the third and fourth games the Illini received solid starts from Tanner Roark and Brian Blomquist.

“It’s not a surprise to me that we’re coming out and playing well in this situation,” Illini head coach Dan Hartleb said. “I think we’re a quality team and our pitching is starting to progress, if we can continue to progress in those areas we’re going to be tough down the stretch.”

In Friday’s opener, Whitmore was more than just tough, striking out a career-high eight while limiting the Wolverines to six hits in a 3-1 Illini win. I missed the game due to a final exam, but from what I heard at the ballpark on Saturday I really wish I could have seen it (In college, slugfests are a dime a dozen, but a real pitching masterpiece can be hard to come by).

The Illini senior had all three pitches working and put every pitch over the plate just where he wanted it. The game was scoreless until the fifth, and after a two-out RBI single put Michigan up 1-0, Illinois’ No. 1 starter retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced.

That’s nasty.

The Illini didn’t let up on Saturday, as Reeser threw the best game I’ve seen this season with a 71-pitch, seven-inning gem in the opener. Unfortunately for Reeser, his only bad pitch proved to be the difference as the Illini fell 1-0. And if that’s not enough, the one run was a solo homer to a kid named Mike Schmidt.

Talk about a tough-luck loser.

In Saturday’s second game, Tanner Roark battled through five innings down only 3-1, and the Illini offense rewarded its young freshman’s effort with a six-run fifth – leading to a 7-4 win.

“We’ve had phenomenal pitching this weekend,” Illini catcher Lars Davis said on Saturday. “When we have good pitching, it lets our offense get rolling a little better.”

Illinois’ offense was very good on Sunday as they banged out 16 hits and hit safely in each inning, but three Michigan home runs spoiled Senior Day as the Wolverines forced a series-split with a 9-6 win. Blomquist had a decent game by working into the fifth inning and allowing only three runs, but the bullpen imploded behind him and surrendered a grand slam to Michigan DH Adam Abraham to cough up the lead for good.

And with the exception of Michigan’s homer barrage in yesterday’s series finale, I thought the Illini pitched (and played) pretty well throughout the series. As the team heads down the home stretch of the Big Ten season, they need as much pitching as possible. Defense wins championships in football, pitching wins championships in baseball.

Besides, who knows what’ll happen next week. Illinois’ staff could keep up the domination against conference bottom-feeding Indiana, or they could blow up and get crushed.

I really have no idea, but if I had to bet, I think I’d put my money on the former. Because the way I see it right now, the Illini aces are dealing.

Lucas Deal is a junior in Communications. He can be reached at [email protected].