Happy Easter Spartan fans! In our last baseball article, the boys of spring were riding high off of a season-opening series win versus nationally ranked Louisville. While taking two of three from the Cardinals was a historic way to start the 2026 season, it also set a high bar for Head Coach Jake Boss and the rest of this Spartan squad. In the two months that have followed, State baseball has struggled in living up to these heightened expectations.
As of Sunday, April 5th, Michigan State is 10-18
and in the midst of a three game road series versus Northwestern. Before Sunday afternoon’s matchup (first pitch is scheduled for 2pm EST from Rocky and Bernice Miller Park), MSU’s conference record is sitting at 5-9 It has been a disappointing, up and down stretch for Spartan baseball, as MSU has played the 15th toughest strength of schedule so far this season, good for 2nd in the Big Ten just behind Maryland.
How We Got Here
After the aforementioned triumph that was Michigan State’s 2-1 start to the year against Louisville, the Spartan offense laid an egg in Austin against the Longhorns. State was only able to score 2 runs total in a three game series vs a now second-ranked Texas team with one of the most dominant rotations in college baseball. MSU’s pitching staff did battle against a potent offense, however, keeping both Saturday and Sunday games close. Carter Monke put together an impressive start in the second game of the series, allowing only one earned run in 6.1 innings. Sunday brought more of a bullpen game, with relievers Tommy Szczepanski and Brady Chambers combining for a substantial 4.2 innings pitched and no runs allowed.
The First Pitch Invitational- One to Forget
From there, MSU traveled to Greenville, SC, for the First Pitch Invitational. This late February/early March tournament was not kind to the green and white, continuing State’s losing streak and serving as a major low point of the season thus far. The Spartans finished the stretch with a dismal 1-4 record, with all of the losses occurring in repetitive and frustrating fashion. Aside from the lone victory against U of Albany, and a blowout loss to the then-tenth ranked Clemson Tigers, the team was haunted by a late-inning curse. In three of their four losses, MSU was either leading or tied heading into the final frames before the bullpen or defense blinked. Against Illinois, the Spartans surrendered a 3-1 lead in the eighth and eventually fell 5-4 in extra innings. This trend continued against James Madison, where a 2-2 tie was broken by a decisive two-run homer by the Dukes in the top of the ninth, and against Winthrop, where an early two run lead vanished as the bullpen allowed five unanswered runs while the bats once again went silent.
Following the tournament, Coach Jake Boss Jr. called out a “lack of urgency” regarding plate adjustments, as the Spartan offense had continued to stagnate. Throughout the five-game stretch, MSU repeatedly left runners stranded in scoring position (sound familiar, Tigers fans?) and struggled with high strikeout rates. Even in their 4-1 win over Albany, the lineup struck out 13 times, relying far too much on streaky, boom-or-bust extra base hits.
Ultimately, the weekend was a perfect storm of ill-timed errors, bullpen fatigue, and a lack of mental toughness. After the first game ended in a tenth-inning heartbreak against Illinois, the issues seemed to magnify throughout State’s time in Greenville. MSU would leave the First Pitch Invitational with an uninspiring 3-8 record, limping into conference play.
A Not-So Warm Welcome Back to the Midwest
MSU would open the official Big Ten season in 2026 with a tough road matchup with Nebraska, March 6-8th, at Haymarket Park in Lincoln. Unfortunately, the three game slate with the Cornhuskers would follow an all-too-familiar script for Boss and Co. Friday’s matchup featured an exciting ten inning affair: Spartan sophomore outfielder Isaac Sturgess came in clutch with a ninth inning three-run home run to force extras, but Nebraska’s Case Sanderson would put the persistent Michigan State team away in the 10th with a two-out walk off homer. Another late-inning loss took a toll on MSU, as a meager one run effort on Saturday led to a 3-1 loss, and the Huskers completed the sweep with a run-rule 12-2 win in seven innings on Sunday.
Steadying the Ship
As is the nature of college sports in today’s world, there would be no long period of rest for Michigan State, as the stumbling Spartans took the field just two days later in Ypsilanti for a one-off road game against Eastern Michigan. State would get a much-needed win against the Eagles, with the bats finally coming to life and providing 12 hits, and an early seven run lead. Eight different MSU pitchers yielded eight total strikeouts to only five hits, and gave some of the key pieces in the Spartan rotation a deserved day off.
Although the following series, taking place the weekend of March 13 in Piscataway, ended in another series defeat, the Spartans’ performance in three games against Rutgers signaled a potential turning point. Michigan State showed flashes of the team they were against Louisville and Eastern, notably through increased resilience in the face of adversity that allowed for State to take one of three from the Scarlet Knights, and be competitive in the other two games.
Once again, Carter Monke represented the MSU pitching staff well, picking up his second win of the year during Saturday’s 9-3 victory. Helping the Spartan offense get back into a rhythm (and 19 total runs scored over the course of the weekend) were Randy Seymour, who homered twice against Rutgers, and Dayton Murphy, bursting onto the scene with a 6-13 weekend including a double and triple.
With a 2-2 record over the last four games, Michigan State headed into a midweek matchup with michigan feeling far better than they had just a week prior. Wednesday March 18th brought a cold and windy day in ann arbor, and despite out-hitting their rivals 8-6, State would fall short 2-0, good for one of the lowest scoring matchups in MSU-um history. “We’re disappointed in the loss,” Jake Boss Jr. said. “I thought our pitchers did a heck of a job keeping us right there…we need to be better offensively, and we need to be able to put good swings on pitches when it matters, and so we’re not doing a very good job of that right now,”
The Spartans answered the call the following weekend against Iowa, finally getting to take the field in East Lansing for the 2026 Home Opener. Flipping the script, MSU would get a 2-0 win of their own on Friday night, in a game where pitcher Aidan Donovan was electric, throwing 7.0 scoreless innings and allowing only three hits. He silenced a potent Iowa offense that had been averaging nearly 9 runs per game. Michigan State’s offense stole the spotlight in Saturday’s first game, combining for 15 runs on 13 hits, winning by ten in an eight inning run rule matchup. This explosion was good for Coach Boss’s 500th career win (475th for MSU), and despite dropping the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader, State would finish the weekend back to .500 (4-4) in their last eight games.
Spartan baseball had been far from consistent to this point, but Boss’s team seemed to finally have found some sort of groove. The Spartan offense, powered by Randy Seymour’s three (!) home runs, would once again explode against a midweek MAC opponent, this time against Central Michigan in a 19-8 rout in Mt. Pleasant on March 24th.
As of Late
With State’s win over CMU, the Spartans moved to an 8-15 overall record. However, the next Big Ten opponent for MSU to take on at home would be a quality team towards the top of the conference standings in the Purdue Boilermakers. Thanks to the bat of junior Ryan McKay and arm of senior Nolan Higgins, Michigan State would get the 4-3 victory in the series opener. Saturday’s game brought a much higher scoring affair, with MSU jumping out to an 8-1 lead before eventually getting clipped by the Boilers in a wild 16-13 final score. This loss marked the end of a great five game stretch in which the Spartans had won four in just one week, and would snowball into a second straight loss at the hands of Purdue on Sunday, this time by a score of 11–4.
This past week of baseball for the Spartans has been anything but ordinary, as another midweek matchup vs the Chippewas of Central Michigan was unfortunately canceled due to inclement weather, and MSU took on the minor league Lansing Lugnuts on Wednesday night. In a game entirely pitched by a machine, and in a two hour time limit format, the Spartans emerged victorious by a score of 16-10.
This weekend’s series with Northwestern is off to a competitive start through two games. Michigan State took game one in Evanston, with a dominant defensive performance to claim a 5-1 win. Saturday afternoon and game two would be a much higher scoring affair, with the Wildcats eventually getting the best of MSU, 10-9 in walk-off fashion.
So, after this roller-coaster first half of the season, State baseball is 10-19 (5-9), with one game remaining this weekend vs Northwestern. Where does this place the Spartans in terms of a Big Ten Tournament berth? Only the top twelve B1G squads qualify, and MSU is right on the chopping block as of April 4th.
Conference tournament seeding is based on in-conf. win percentage, and then head to head record. At 5-9, a series finale win versus NU would go a long way in the rankings- helping the Spartans leap past not only the Wildcats, but another team in the mix, Iowa, who State holds a tiebreaker over.
Looking Forward- Make or Break Time
Opportunities lie ahead for Michigan State to make a push for the conference tournament, as they have all year. However, the next few conference opponents will all bring must-win weekends. As we discussed, the path starts today against Northwestern, winning the series against a similarly middle-tier Big Ten opponent would be a great start. MSU will then take on non-conference foe Notre Dame in a midweek matchup, before a MASSIVE weekend series versus that school down the road. State will play host to the wolverines, and need to continue their improved play at Jeff Ishbia Field at McLane Stadium.
The following weekend, of April 17th, State will fly to Seattle to take on the Washington Huskies in an important West Coast showdown. If MSU can get the win this afternoon, and manage to win one of the two series against UW or um, the Big Ten Tournament will still be in play. Any worse, and Spartan baseball fans will be on the verge of yet another disappointing season for recently-extended Head Coach Jake Boss.
As college basketball winds down, the baseball diamond takes center stage just in time for Michigan State to embark on their most pivotal stretch of games this season. It’s time for veterans like Ryan McKay and Randy Seymour to take over, and help the Spartans make a run to qualify for the expanded B1G tournament for the second time in as many years.
Bonus: Softball Update!
It has been a tale of two seasons for the softball women of Sparta. As of April 3rd, Michigan State holds a 14–22 overall record with a 1–10 mark in Big Ten play. The team came out of the gates hot in 2026, especially during their early neutral-site schedule, boasting a 13–3 record and picking up major resume-building upsets against No. 13 Clemson, Virginia Tech, and BYU. However, the transition to true road and home games has been difficult, with the Spartans currently 0–13 on the road and 1–5 at Secchia Stadium in East Lansing.
However, Saturday April 3rd has brought the first bright spot in recent weeks for Spartan softball. MSU secured its first Big Ten victory of the year with a dominant 7–0 shutout over Illinois. This win was anchored by the staff’s ERA leader Autumn Behlke (4.61 ERA) and a consistent offensive spark from Zoie Bernard, who continues to lead the team with a .333 batting average. While the team has faced tough sweeps at the hands of Top-10 opponents like Nebraska and UCLA, the recent split of Saturday’s doubleheader with Illinois and impressive non-con schedule suggests the Spartans are capable of finding their footing as they enter the heart of the conference schedule. They will look to carry that momentum into their upcoming series against Rutgers and michigan to close out the month.
Be sure to keep tabs on softball, baseball, and all of MSU’s spring sports as the weather warms up this April! Also- see Mike’s write up on Michigan State’s stellar gymnastics team this year. Go Green!!
