There's no denying it: The Michigan baseball team is on the bubble of the Big Ten Tournament.

The Wolverines sit firmly in 7th place in the Big Ten standings. With a Big Ten record of 7-11, they are trying to play their way into the top six spots to assure themselves a chance at the Big Ten Tournament title in Columbus, Ohio beginning May 20.

Michigan is half a game behind 6th place Purdue, who faces off against 5th place Michigan State this weekend in East Lansing.

Despite a multitude of injuries throughout the season and several lineup changes, Michigan is trying to find success through consistency.

“The reality is, now we have a group of guys that is going to be our group of guys,” said Michigan coach Rick Maloney. “In other words, these are the guys who have got to ride it so whatever we accomplish is going to be up to them.”

Senior Chris Fetter, Friday night’s starting pitcher, will look to improve on his 87 strikeouts this season as Minnesota comes in boasting the fourth-highest batting percentage in the Big Ten.

And to fill the void left by injured senior captain Kevin Cislo, Maloney will likely use the combo of redshirt junior Nick Urban and junior Mike Kittle on second base.

With the recent offensive surge of the Wolverines — a combined 41 runs scored in the last four games — Maloney is hoping the team can carry over their batting skills into this weekend’s Big Ten matchup.

Leading the way for the Wolverines as they have for much of the season will be sophomore Ryan LaMarre and junior Mike Dufek. LaMarre leads the team with a .342 batting average and has scored 44 runs on the season, another team best.

Meanwhile, Dufek is leading the Wolverines in almost every other category. In his 184 at-bats, he has accumulated a team high 61 hits, including 14 home runs. His 53 RBI is only three ahead of LaMarre but 28 higher than the team’s third best.

The Golden Gophers are second in the Big Ten behind Illinois. And Minnesota is hungry to sweep the Wolverines, with their coach, John Anderson, only three games away from his 1,000th victory. Minnesota has been clutch at home this season, accumulating a record of 11-1, but in their few road trips of the season they are 2-3.

Gopher junior Derek McCallum could prove to be dangerous for the Wolverines with a .399 batting average. He leads Minnesota with 69 hits, 61 RBI and 14 home runs.

But the Wolverines are optimistic with their current successes.

"(Our confidence) is really high right now,” junior catcher Chris Berset said. “I think we're playing our best ball right now. And this is what we need to do. We're going down to crunch time playing a great Minnesota team. We need to come out there battling and keep taking this intensity into the weekend and we'll see how it goes."