MORGANTOWN — No. 15 West Virginia baseball just beat Marshall, sweeping its rival, and has won four-straight games. The Mountaineers have scored 36 runs over those four. After a 1-3 week, everything seems to be going right for WVU.

All the momentum comes just in time for WVU’s biggest series of the season when it heads to the top team in the Big 12, No. 7 Kansas, this weekend. The series starts today, with the first pitch set for 7 p.m., and it’ll be streamed on ESPN+.

The Jayhawks are 20-4 in the Big 12, which is four games ahead of WVU, who is joint second with Arizona State, with a record of 16-8. WVU hits the road to play Kansas, which isn’t favorable. The Jayhawks haven’t lost a Big 12 game at home this season, and are 18-2 at home overall.

Kansas was on a 10-game winning streak before stumbling in its most recent game against Creighton in extra innings. The Jayhawks are still No. 7 in the nation, 37-12 overall and 15th in the RPI.

This will be WVU’s toughest test yet. To get more insights on WVU’s biggest series this season, we talked with Kansas beat writer for the Lawrence Journal-World, Henry Greenstein, about why this Kansas team is so strong.

Playing with the lead

If you look at the Big 12 stats, on paper, WVU should be a bit better. The Mountaineers have a better batting average and ERA with their pitching staff. But Kansas has been more dominant this season. Once the Jayhawks have the lead, they don’t give it up, being the best at playing in front.

“They don’t give up leads,” Greenstein said. “Which just has to do with how solid their relief pitching is. If you look at Boede Rahe, their closer, he’s basically had one bad outing in the entirety of Big 12 play. They still won that game anyway. He’s been incredibly solid and reliable. He’s also like a fiery, emotional guy who gets the team pumped up. Toby Scheidt, who’s a transfer from Bryant, has been incredible. He’s got a sidearm delivery that kind of keeps hitters guessing. Riane Ritter, who’s a St Thomas transfer, too. Those are kind of some of the core late relief arms who have helped them hold leads.”

Kansas, like WVU, isn’t completely out of a game when falling behind, either. The Jayhawks have a couple of come-from-behind wins this season, so Kansas can coast to victory or pull off a late comeback. Kansas was down 8-5 in the eighth inning in Game 2, and managed to win 10-8.

“They never seem remotely daunted by falling behind early,” Greenstein said. “As Dan Fitzgerald would tell you, the come-from-behind wins stat is a little bit silly because a lot of time it’s like they’re down 1-0 in the first inning or whatever. If you look at a series like Kansas State, they had so many times where they could have gone down and just let it slip away, but they kept fighting.”

Kansas’ balanced lineup

Unlike WVU, Kansas doesn’t have two hitters who are atop the Big 12 in batting average. You have to scroll down to hitter No. 28 in the conference’s top batting averages to find a Kansas hitter. That’d be Tyson LeBlanc, who hits .337. The Jayhawks have more of a balanced lineup, and some of their hitters didn’t get off to the best starts, so that’s why they haven’t flooded the top of the stat sheet.

Kansas usually uses the same nine players in the lineup, and all of them can contribute in some way.

“It’s absolutely a well-rounded group,” Greenstein said. “What makes it all the more impressive is that they don’t play more than like 10 guys. They’ve had a lot of luck in terms of not having injuries in the lineup. But, top to bottom, it’s threatening in many games. It feels like Dylan Schlotterback in the nine hole is just as likely to get on base as Jordan Bach in the one hole.”

Kansas does hit a lot more home runs than the Mountaineers. WVU has been raking recently, but nowhere near the amount that the Jayhawks have hit this season. Kansas has hit 83 home runs, which is the third-most in the Big 12. LeBlanc leads the team with 16, but the rest of the lineup can all hit one yard.

Kansas is also one of the top teams at working a base. Leadoff hitter Jordan Bach leads the league in walks, and as a whole, Kansas leads the Big 12 with 279 walks.

“It’s an extremely disciplined team that knows what pitches they’re looking for,” Greenstein said. “The hitting coach, Tyler Hancock, is really good at helping them get a consistent approach, and it’s really worked to their advantage throughout the year.”

Starting rotation

Kansas could throw a couple of different arms this weekend. It’s not as predictable as WVU’s rotation, where Maxx Yehl, Chansen Cole and Dawson Montesa will pitch in the three games in some order. Last week, it was Yehl in Game 1, Cole in Game 2 and Montesa in the Day 3 spot. The Jayhawks have shuffled their starting pitching.

Kansas’ ace, and most likely Friday starter, is Dominic Voegele. Voegele is a 6-foot-2 right-handed junior who was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year in 2024. He’s a household name in Kansas. But Voegele hasn’t replicated the success in his early seasons.

“He went through a long period of inconsistency,” Greenstein said. “It basically spanned the entirety of last season and early this year, too. You just didn’t know what you were going to get from him. Sometimes you get the guy who regularly went seven or eight innings, allowing two or three runs. Sometimes you get seven runs and three and a third innings.”

As of late, Voegele has been dealing. In his last outing, he went a complete game and had a whopping 15 strikeouts. Voegele has had 45 strikeouts in his last four starts. He hasn’t allowed more than three earned runs since the start of April.

“There was a time when he was moved out of the Friday spot, and now he’s back in it,” Greenstein said. “He’s looked like the player everyone thought he’d be.”

For the rest of the potential starters, 6-foot-5 junior Mathis Nayral from France is expected to start one of the games. He has a 5.47 ERA. Mason Cook is another option for one of the days for Kansas and has a 4.95 ERA.

“The starting pitching’s improvement has led most to their recent success,” Greenstein said. “The back end of the bullpen was always pretty good, but it was getting put in some unfavorable positions early in the year. Now both of those are rolling, and that’s allowed them to limit opponents for the most part.”