The Iowa Hawkeye baseball team opens the second half of the Big Ten race on today in a three game series against Minnesota in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes are 5-7 in the league race and coach Rick Heller says they need a more consistent effort out of their bullpen. “That’s where we’ve had some games go the other way, where we’ve had leads and let them slip through our hands. And that’s one of the areas that we have to do a better job if we are gonna make a run in the Big 10,” Heller says.

The Hawks surrendered a ten run lead in a loss at Northwestern last Friday but bounced back to win the final two games of that series. Heller says sometimes when you lose a game that way you go into a slump. But he says they bounced back and played some good ball.

Minnesota is also 5-7 in league play and the teams are tied for seventh right now. The top eight qualify for the Big Ten Tournament. “They will be fighting hard because they lost 3 close games to Nebraska last week,” Heller says. He says they play 7 of their next 8 games at home and they hope to capitalize on the homestand.

The teams will also play single games on Saturday and Sunday.