After dropping the opening game of the series against Michigan State to fall to 3-7 in conference play, I’ll admit, I was worried. But the ‘Cats, as they have all season, fought tooth-and-nail, refused to let up, and stole the next two from the Spartans for their first Big Ten series win of 2026. It was far from a perfect performance, but Ben Greenspan’s team has finally positioned themselves to seriously climb the Big Ten standings and, perhaps more importantly, avoid the gutter.
The Good
If the ‘Cats didn’t
mash as they did this past weekend, they likely would’ve gotten swept. The team’s six home runs, eight doubles and 30 hits pushed them to eighth in the Big Ten in slugging percentage. Finally, it seems, Greenspan and his squad discovered their identity and began to fully buy in.
Unlike his first year in Evanston, where Greenspan prioritized contact hitters that didn’t strike out, struggled to generate walks and couldn’t slug enough to offset the lack of baserunners, NU’s hitters this season go up to the plate looking to do damage.
Unsurprisingly, this team simply lacks the talent on the mound to consistently win low-scoring games. The solution: win as many 10-9 and 8-6 contests as possible, which is exactly what they did over the weekend. More importantly, it wasn’t just a few guys carrying the load; eight different Wildcats recorded RBIs in the series and each starter recorded a hit. This high-octane, hit-or-miss offense will undoubtedly frustrate and sputter over the course of a full season, but when they’re clicking, no game is out of reach.
The Bad
No realistic Northwestern baseball fan expected some astounding leap forward from the roster’s arms, but many stood to believe that we’d see enough improvement to make the squad more complete than it had been in years. Unfortunately, the pitching performances feel almost painfully similar to how they did in 2025. The 2026 team ERA of 7.42, good for second worst in the Big Ten, ranks just barely better than the 2025 mark of 7.65. Northwestern’s pitchers rank dead last in KK/9, fifth worst in BB/9, third worst in WHIP and have allowed 12 more home runs than any other squad despite throwing the fewest innings.
In other words, the pitching talent and depth simply is not where it needs to be to truly be competitive in the Big Ten. Against Michigan State, despite the lofty offensive performance I detailed earlier, Spartan hitters reached base more and struck out less than their Wildcat counterparts. Northwestern’s offense is good, but not elite, and just “good” can’t carry the load when the pitching staff will leave them behind more often than not.
The Best
After a relatively slow start to conference play, Owen McElfatrick has absolutely turned it on recently. The senior has 11 hits in his last eight games, including five in the series against Michigan State. McElfatrick is still a ways off from matching the monstrous .926 OPS he put up in 2025, but back-to-back multi-hit performances, including a walk-off single on Saturday, prove he’s trending in the right direction. If he continues to keep his swing short and make contact at the rate he did in 2025 where he hit above .300, he could be a separator for the Wildcats moving forward.
It was a step in the right direction for Northwestern, but there is still work to do. The Wildcats take on the Purdue Boilermakers in Evanston over the weekend. With a series win, the ‘Cats will be at .500 in conference play before taking on some weaker Big Ten opponents to end April. The Boilermakers can swing it — they rank fourth in the Big Ten in batting average — but their pitchers are susceptible to the home run and struggle to rack up strikeouts, which should leave enough room open for the ‘Cats offense to make the series interesting. If the ‘Cats pitchers can hold it down just enough, we may finally see the squad mount some real momentum.
