Sometimes failure is important before success. 

The Illinois baseball team had high expectations coming into the season — a strong recruiting class, coupled with nearly all of its top players returning, gave them good reason. On opening day, Illinois dominated in a 13-2 victory in which every starter reached base. 

But something came undone after that game. The Illini dropped the next three games.

It’s possible that those losses actually benefited the Illini. It stopped them from becoming complacent, and they’ve been rolling ever since.

“I think that’s going to be something we remember the rest of the season,” left fielder Jordan Parr said. “It kind of kick-starts us every weekend. If we get a big Friday night win like we did this weekend then we don’t come out flat on a Saturday.”

The Illini (7-4) had won six in a row before dropping the series finale on Sunday 6-5 to UT-Arlington. They battled back from being down 5-0 to tie it before falling to an eighth inning go-ahead sac fly. The six-game win streak was Illinois’ longest since it collected eight in a row on the way to the Big Ten regular season and tournament championship in 2011. Illinois trailed a total of three innings during the win streak.

Illinois has scored 51 total runs during the past seven games, despite the fact that the Illini used a different batter order in each of the first six wins.  

The constants have been Jordan and Justin Parr, who had collected a hit in each the first 10 games for Illinois and are first and second in on-base percentage, runs batted in, doubles, slugging percentage and even stolen bases. Justin Parr is leading the team in hitting at .479 with a .510 on-base percentage and has driven in 13 runs. Jordan Parr is hitting .364, with two home runs — including his second on Saturday — and has knocked in 14. 

“They’re a threat,” Illinois head coach Dan Hartleb said. “People have to really pay attention to what they’re doing and they’ve been very impressive.” 

The sophomore class for Illinois has taken leaps of improvement. First baseman David Kerian and designated hitter Michael Hurwitz couldn’t even get a hit during stretches of months last year and have played their way into the everyday lineup. Will Krug has emerged as the team’s leadoff hitter and right fielder. 

Those new lineup changes, along with the fact that opposing teams haven’t really figured out a way to contain Illinois on the base paths, is why the offense has taken off. The Illini have successfully swiped 26 out of 28 bases this season. 

Illinois freshmen starters seem to be adjusting to the college game fine and have each collected victories in consecutive starts. Kevin Duchene didn’t give up an earned run in 8 2/3 innings on Friday, and Nick Blackburn collected his second straight quality start going 6 2/3 innings and allowing two runs during the first game of a doubleheader Saturday. Kevin Johnson moved into ninth on the Illini’s career strikeout list and picked up a victory on Saturday. 

During the weekend, the pitching staff allowed just 10 runs with a 2.57 ERA. 

So right now everything seems to be clicking for Illinois, although the competition gets more difficult as it prepares to travel to Baylor. But even during Illinois’ most recent loss, Hartleb has been noticing a different mind-set in his players, something that wasn’t so prevalent last season. The Illini trailed by five runs as late as the seventh inning, but the players were still up on the fence cheering one another on when Illinois was hitting instead of sitting on the bench. That’s something Harlteb didn’t think Illinois did a good job of last season. 

Now it appears as though Illinois isn’t taking winning or losing for granted. They know they’ve got a long way to go even if the game is in the seventh inning.

“I never want to fail, but sometimes when you do and you learn some things, you listen a little bit better to the things that cause you trouble and cause you problems,” Hartleb said. “I think it caught the guys attention. We’ve improved a lot since that first weekend.” 

“Its not like we’re anywhere close to perfect. Just because we’ve won some games, we’ve still got a lot to do.”

Jamal can be reached at [email protected] and @jamalcollier.