Get to know the Louisville baseball opening weekend foe.
Finally, Louisville baseball is here.
Folks, the time has come to get excited about the Louisville baseball program again. Following a run to Omaha in 2025, Dan McDonnell and the Cards return a loaded roster with a mix of experience and youth.
For the 2026 edition of opening weekend, the Cards will go face to face with Michigan State.
Conference: Big Ten
Coach: Jake Boss (all-name team)
2025 Result: 28-27 overall / 13-17 Big Ten Conference
2025 Postseason: 0-2 in Big Ten Tournament (losses to Nebraska and Oregon) / No NCAA Tournament Invite
College World Series Appearances: 1 (1954)
The Big Ten as a conference has not been historically strong on a national or postseason scale. Michigan, with the most College World Series trips in the conference, made the trip to Omaha in 2019, and the conference’s last appearance in the CWS was Indiana in 2013, led by absolute masher Kyle Schwarber (has never derailed a train, however). UCLA made it to Omaha last season, but they’ve been a member of the Pac-12 (RIP) longer than being a new money member of the Big Ten. The Pac-12 was no slouch when it came to sending teams to Nebraska quite regularly.
Michigan State does have a CWS appearance, albeit before either of my parents were born. When MSU made it to Omaha last, Demetrius and the Gladiators was #1 at the Box Office, and the Kitty Kallen smash hit Little Things Mean a Lot was the most played song by radio jockeys and on jukeboxes nationwide. We are talking, of course, about the wonderful year 1954. The Big Ten hasn’t won a baseball National Championship since Ohio State did it back in 1966. Baseball powerhouses aren’t blasting out of the traditionally-cold weather conference.
Also relevant: True freshman garnering national attention
The straw that stirs the Michigan State drink
This year’s Michigan State team is coming off of a rough 2025, barely breaking a .500 record and sporting a losing conference record, getting bounced in the conference tournament with back-to-back losses to Nebraska and Oregon. However, there is some talent returning on this team, and skipper Jake Boss has a guy in junior second baseman Ryan McKay who has been tabbed as a Baseball Media Top-100 Player, hitting the list at #72 after being selected to the All-Big Ten Second Team.
He led the squad in 2025 hitting .319 with 20 Doubles, and was struck out just 31 times in 210 at-bats. It’s safe to say that you’ll more than likely hear Sean Moth call his name during the opening weekend series, but outside of him…the Spartans batted just .263 with a .782 On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS) percentage which is just slightly above average for how the team gets on base and hits for extra bases. Noah Bright will also factor highly into the Spartan Offense from the catcher position.
He’s a solid catcher, and hosed 10 would-be base stealers last season while posting the fourth-best batting average on the team at .277. The Spartans were excellent at the catcher spot last year and Bright figures to continue to be a key piece for them this year as well.
Michigan State’s supporting cast
Aside from McKay and Bright, outfielders Parker Picot and Nick Williams will both be key pieces this season in the outfield while looking to anchor the batting order for the Spartans.
State’s pitching staff that was led last season by Joseph Dzierwa, who in 2025 posted a 2.36 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP, even going the distance in a complete game shutout against Oregon will assuredly miss him, after he departed for the Orioles organization by being selected as the #58 overall pick in the MLB Draft. Louisville, will not have to face the reigning First-Team All Big Ten, Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) and Perfect Game Second-Team All-American, American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) and D1 Baseball Third-Team All-American, and College Sports Communicators Academic Third-Team All-American, who was also a semifinalist for the big three individual awards – The Golden Spikes Award, Dick Howser Trophy, and the College Baseball Foundation’s National Pitcher of the Year.
Whew, ok…that’s a lot of words to say I’m really glad that our guys don’t have to kick off the year against this absolute stud of a pitcher. Good Luck in the pros, kid.
With Dzierwa departing, the remainder of the staff is a relative unknown. State also lost Tate Farquhar to the transfer portal, where he ended up with Troy and head coach Skylar Meade (If you’ve talked college baseball with me for longer than three seconds, you know my thoughts on coach Meade and what happens when Dan McDonnell decides to hang it up and ride off into the sunset of retirement). Oh, I forgot…yeah, THAT Skylar Meade.
Let’s look at the 2025 stats for the two programs side-by-side:
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Louisville baseball vs. Michigan State head to head
The first caveat to looking at these stats is this – Louisville plays in the ACC. The step up from the Big Ten in terms of competition is enough to skew any stats Louisville’s way, and the biggest flag on this should be the pitching. Now, can Roger Williams do better? Yes, in no small part especially when it comes to the bullpen.
Does Roger Williams get the wiggle room to do better? Also yes. Louisville got hot at all the right times last season, and Ethan Eberle broke out as a freshman, but State looks better when you stack their pitching stats side-by-side to Louisville’s. Joseph Dzierwa counted for a lot, but Louisville especially has got to find even the outskirts of the zone. State posted a FOURTH of the wild pitches and two thirds the plunked batters that Louisville pitching struggled with. Cleaning up those two areas and being able to hit locations will go a very, very long way for Williams’ staff this season.
More Louisville baseball: Pitching staff lands 3 on national list
Offensively, and once the ball is in play, however, all favor the Cards. Louisville catchers need to block balls on the ground better, and the fielding would be a clean sweep of green in their favor. If a catcher is trusting a pitcher to find the zone, passed balls become much less of a worry. In terms of the batting order, Louisville outclasses Michigan State in nearly every category. Louisville may strike out more, but they again are facing elite pitching competition in the ACC, and are still able to vastly outclass the Spartans offensively – not to mention, Louisville made the Final Four while MSU got bounced in the Big Ten Tournament. More games, more innings. More quality competition.
Opening weekend predictions
My prediction for the opening weekend is tough. I don’t necessarily like predicting sweeps, as I’m typically a gloom-and-doom fan who prepares for the worst and then celebrates the best. However, with no all-world pitcher, and with questions up and down the roster for MSU, there is no better time to go out and watch the Cards add another year to the list of College World Series Appearances on the Outfield Wall, and start this year’s campaign 3-0.
Cards get the sweep with Ethan Eberle, Jake Bean, and a solid bullpen, while Zion Rose, Tague Davis (may derail a train), and Lucas Moore show why they are All-Americans and Kade Elam making his long-awaited debut.. Winning the series is enough, but even though State is a Power 4 opponent, I don’t see much for them in the way of crashing the NCAA Tournament or making noise in the Big Ten.
Getting them at the beginning of the year is a good way to get off to a winning start and then hoping they crash the party down the road, helping Louisville’s RPI. Losing the series and then State having the same type of season as last year would mean Louisville has farther to go than we may think. I doubt that’s the case.
First Pitch against Michigan State is scheduled for 2:00pm this Friday, February 13th. See you at Jim Patterson Stadium.
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