“I suppose I should put some pants on,” Justin Parr said, peeking his head out from behind the brick wall of Illinois’ clubhouse.

The Illini baseball’s star outfielder laughed his way back into the locker room to retrieve pants to pull over his compression shorts before addressing the media Wednesday at Illinois Field, delaying the inevitable questions regarding his career-best hitting streak, which extended to 21 games in Illinois’ 12-1 mercy-rule win against Illinois State.

The Illinois baseball team is loose, as evident by Parr’s actions, and confident in its play as of late, particularly at the plate. Every starter recorded a hit in Tuesday’s win — Illinois’ fourth straight overall, with it notching double figures in hits in each of those wins.

The Illini (23-10, 5-4 Big Ten) will look to carry the success from their win over the Redbirds and recent sweep of Purdue into this weekend’s three-game series against Ohio State (23-12, 7-5).

“We feel pretty confident with where we’re at,” Parr said. “Offensively, we aren’t striking out, which is something we struggled with at the beginning of the year. We put a lot of pressure on the defense.”

Illinois has its eyes on a sweep after dropping games it feels it should have won earlier in the season. But the Buckeyes pose a greater challenge than the Redbirds, who ranked sixth in the Missouri Valley Conference, and Purdue, which entered last weekend last in the Big Ten in ERA.

The Buckeye’s rotation features a flurry of power-pitching right-handers that rank second in the conference with a 2.68 team ERA. Ohio State is also tied for second in the Big Ten in opposing batting average, holding opponents to .231 on the season.

Looking to equalize the Buckeyes will be Kevin Johnson, Illinois’ No. 1 starter and owner of a 5-2 record and 2.52 ERA. Johnson struggled in his last outing against Purdue, allowing five runs in uncharacteristic five innings and will look to rebound in what the statistics suggest should be a pitchers’ duel Friday.

“I like playing better teams than the ones going into the weekend you’re going to beat,” Johnson said. “You got to be perfect, basically. That’s not putting pressure on ourselves, it’s just doing what we do.”

Johnson is 1 1/3 innings away from setting Illinois’ career innings-pitched record. He will look to do so in a rematch of last year’s Friday night matchup against Jaron Long (4-3, 3.53), who will once again take the mound for Purdue. Johnson got the win last year on the way to the Illini’s 2-1 series win.

Illinois will supersede the Buckeyes for fifth place in the conference standings with a sweep. That would put the Illini’s winning streak at seven games, with perhaps Parr extending his hitting streak to 24 — just one game shy of tying Ryan Snowden’s school-record streak of 25 set in 2007.

In other words, an accomplishment almost worthy of wearing pants.

Jeff can be reached at [email protected] and @jkirsh91.