Dylan Crews calmly stepped out of the on-deck circle to have a little chat with his head coach, Jay Johnson. After trailing by as much as 6-2, timely LSU hitting and some gutsy pitching had pulled the Tigers back to a 6-6 game. The bases were loaded with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, and Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle took his mound visit to talk to his pitcher and infield.
“We’ve blueprinted his approach with runners in scoring position, and I just gave him a subtle reminder of that,” Johnson said of his comments to Crews.
Crews told his coach something that probably gave the first-year head coach a lot of confidence in his outfielder.
“I actually told Coach before I was going to win the game right there,” Crews said.
Chris Cortez delivered the first pitch, a breaking ball that fell in for a strike. He knew what pitch he wanted, and the patient approach Johnson had been instilling in his players paid off. Next pitch was a fastball over the plate, and Crews smacked it through the left side of the infield, scoring the winning run for LSU. While Tre’ Morgan did get thrown out at home for the third out, the Tigers finally had a lead.
The Aggies did not go down gently. The first pitch Riley Cooper threw was hit right back up the middle. Cade Doughty leapt as high as he could and snagged the potential leadoff single out of the air. The next batter took two strikes, and then hit a chopper to Jack Merrifield. He fielded it quickly and threw it to Morgan, well over his head. It looked like LSU was going to blow another game with poor defensive decision making and execution.
But Morgan chased down the errant throw, slid to grab it and threw the ball to second where the Aggie runner was breaking to. On a rope, the ball landed in Doughty’s glove well before the runner reached the bag, and the LSU second baseman applied the tag much to the delight of the purple and gold crowd. Energy flowed through the Box like someone had flipped the breaker on for power to zoom into circuit.
“I was chasing the ball, and I saw that dude take off,” Morgan said. “I was like ‘I’m throwing this ball no matter what’ because I couldn’t let him get into scoring position. Thankfully, it was a good throw, but really it was a blind one. I just gripped it and threw it to where I remembered second base was.”
Shortly after, Cooper induced a fly out to center to win the game for LSU and net them their first SEC win of the season. The heroics of LSU’s star power effectively sealed the game for Johnson and his team.
However, LSU also has a lot to work on. On Sunday alone, LSU pitching gave up 17 hits and two errors to Texas A&M. Over the weekend, it totaled to 39 hits and 22 runs. The pitching is going to have to improve as SEC plays goes on. The Tiger defense also committed six errors on the weekend, another stain on LSU’s abilities going forward. Johnson knows there are things his team needs to get fixed, despite the courageous win Sunday.
“I’m proud of my team,” Johnson said. “It’s easy to pile on when you don’t get the job done or get down, and they didn’t do that. There’s a lot of things in the game we need to get better at, which we’re going to practice tomorrow night to turn the page some of that stuff and get prepared for another really good team on Tuesday.”
But for now, LSU can rest a little easier tonight knowing it finally got a win in their back pocket and that when the chips are down and the team needs a play, LSU’s stars can answer the call. Crews and Morgan sure proved that Sunday.