Seven Kansas University baseball players will visit their home state today when the Jayhawks play No. 4 Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., but they won’t have much time to spend with their families.

The Jayhawks’ game at 6 tonight at Stanford’s Sunken Diamond kicks off a three-game series against the Cardinal that continues at 1 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. Sunday.

Jayhawk coach Ritch Price said KU (7-4-1) would be tested in all three games.

“To me, they’re the model of what college baseball is all about,” Price said. “They have the best academics in the country, they’ve been to the College World Series five straight times, and they’ve played for the national title two straight years.”

“They’re solid in every phase of the game. They have as good of pitching as anybody in the country. They have tremendous athletes that are physical, have the ability to run and play great defense. They’re one of the few programs in America that you can look at on a consistency basis that has no weaknesses.”

Against Stanford, the Jayhawks can’t afford to show weakness a la last weekend’s losses to Lamar and Texas-Pan American and tie with Sam Houston State. In each of those games, KU took control early but blew leads in the last three innings.

Price said teams like Stanford always would capitalize on such letdowns. The Cardinal (5-1) average almost nine runs per game and have scored at least eight runs in all but two games this year, but they lost a 3-1 decision to Fresno State last week.

This series is similar to when KU played an early season series last year at then-No. 6 Louisiana State and won all three games. That weekend provided a major confidence boost for the Jayhawks and set the tone for the rest of their season.

Senior first baseman and Preseason All-American Ryan Baty is hoping for identical results in this year’s early marquee series.

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“It’s the same scenario, pretty much,” Baty said. “You’re looking at one of the top, storied college perennial powerhouses. We’re going to go out there as the University of Kansas … and we’re going to look to make our name again.

“We’re excited, we trust in our abilities, we trust in each other, and we’re going to go out there and try to raise some noise.”