| Probable Starting Pitchers |
| Day |
Illinois |
Illinois State |
| Tue. 5 p.m. CT |
RHP Maldonado (0-0, 3.18) |
RHP Wicklund (3-1, 2.25) |
PREVIEW
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The Illinois baseball team makes the short trip Tuesday to Normal, Illinois, to match up against Illinois State. The Illini and Redbirds meet for the fourth time after Illinois swept a three-game series at Illinois Field in March.
Illinois (20-10, 1-5 Big Ten) will go with freshman Aidan Maldonado on the mound for his fourth straight midweek start. The right-hander has a 2.31 ERA in 11 2/3 innings during his last three starts while allowing eight hits and striking out nine.
Illinois State (17-14, 2-1 Missouri Valley) is led by a strong lineup that has produced a .295 team batting average and 25 home runs in the first 31 games. The Redbirds have won four of their last five, a weekend series win over Valparaiso and midweek victories against Eastern Illinois and Iowa.
Dave Loane has the call on the Fighting Illini Sports Network. Illinois State will provide a video stream via ESPN+ (subscription required).
NOTES
• Illinois swept Illinois State in three games at Illinois Field March 22-24.
• Illinois hit a season-high four home runs against Illinois State March 24.
• Ben Troike had his first career two-home run game against Illinois State March 24.
• Opponents are 4-40 with runners in scoring position against the Illini in the last five games.
• Grant Van Scoy is on a career-long hitting streak of 10 games and a career-long reached base streak of 13 games. Van Scoy leads the team with a .383 batting average and .450 average in Big Ten games.
• Illinois is 17-7 on the weekends (Fri.-Sun.) and 3-3 during the week (Mon.-Thur.).
• Illinois is 19-4 when allowing six or fewer runs.
• Illinois is 18-2 when leading or tied after seven innings.
• Illinois is 9-2 at home and 8-6 on the road.
• Illinois is 3-1 against ranked teams (D1Baseball Poll).
• Illinois is outscoring opponents 20-6 in the first inning and 11-7 in the ninth inning.
• Illinois has a fielding percentage of .979, equal to last year's single-season program record (.979).
• Illinois has a fielding percentage of .985 in Big Ten games (three errors in six games).
• Illinois started the season 6-0 and was ranked No. 25 by D1Baseball before dropping three of four games against No. 20 Coastal Carolina (0-1), Connecticut (0-1) and Northeastern (1-1) to start March. The Illini have won 12 of 17 since the 1-3 weekend at Coastal.
• Illinois started the season 14-3, tied for the best start through 17 games in the last 60 years (Started 16-1 in 1959). The 14-3 start tied for the sixth-best 17-game start in program history.
• Illinois swept five of its first six weekends. The Illini swept three of its first four weekends for the first time since beginning to regularly play February games in 1982.
• Zac Taylor started Saturday for the first time after missing 14 straight games with an injury. He was leading the Illinois' offense in average (.400), slugging (.760), hits (20), doubles (7), triples (1), homers (3), runs (15) and stolen bases (12) when he went down. Taylor was a home run away from the cycle Sunday at Grand Canyon but had to be removed from the game after injuring his ankle while trying to make a catch at the wall.
• Michael Massey, a Preseason All-American, was unable to play defense for the first 28 games of the season due to an injury. Massey started the first 28 games at DH and homered in three straight games 3/9-3/16/2019.
UP NEXT
Illinois travels to Minnesota this weekend for a three-game series Friday-Sunday. The Sunday game is scheduled to be aired on Big Ten Network.
