Why, exactly, doesn't Iowa play their home games here?

. . . for a little baseball fix.  Your Spartans head to Iowa City this weekend, for an important Friday-Saturday-Sunday 3 game set against the Hawkeyes. 

MSU has rebounded nicely from a Lions-like 2-14 start to the season, thanks to home dominance (10-1 at the swanky new McLane Stadium) and excellent pitching, and is in within striking distance of making the Big Ten Tournament for the first time since 2004.  The top six teams qualify for the tournament; we're currently tied for sixth, with Michigan and Penn State, at 5-7 in conference, and Purdue is only a half-game up in the standings.  (The tiebreaker formula is long and confusing, and we still play 3 games each against Purdue and PSU, so there's plenty yet to be determined.)  Obviously, sweeping Iowa, or at least taking two of three, would help our chances enormously.

And, it's doable: Iowa is 14-22 (3-8) on the season, although they do come into the weekend on a 3 game winning streak, having taken games against Northwestern, Western Illinois, and Northern Iowa in the past week.  Last season, we won 3 of a 4-game set at Oldsmobile Park against the Hawks.

"Pardnuh, he's filthy today, pardnuh!"

MSU won a laugher against the Lugnuts and took 2 of 3 against Michigan last weekend, before a bad loss Wednesday against a Central Michigan team we had beaten 20-3 previously this season.  Nolan Moody, pictured above, takes the hill for us tomorrow.  He's 4-4 with a 3.47 ERA on the season, but more memorably, threw a no-hitter against Northwestern on April 4 in the first game played at our new stadium.  A.J. Achter (2-3, 3.29) is scheduled to pitch on Saturday.  The games on Saturday (3:30 ET) and Sunday (2:30) will be live on BTN.  So, if you're not going to be at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, there's, uh, that.

Go Green.

*or is it tOC?  We need some tOSU fans to clarify the protocol.

(Photo credits: MopSquad and CSTV.)