Dylan Crews had gone four games without a home run. For most players, that would be a minute period of time. For Crews, it was really starting to eat at him.
“Finally,” Crews said with a sigh. “It’s about time honestly.”
Crews’s two-run home run opened the scoring for LSU in their 6-0 win over Towson Friday night. The sophomore found a pitch to drive, and at 109.1 mph off the bat, the ball was nearly driven to the football operations facility. It halted halfway up the scoreboard and clanked in the left field landing bleachers.
Just two at-bats later, Crews hit another rocket down the right field that the Towson right fielder dove for but could not field. With his plus-speed, Crews zoomed around the bases and picked up his third triple of the season as well as two more RBIs. He led the team with four on the evening.
“My approach was just middle way the whole time,” Crews said. “I wasn’t going to chase anything. I was going to let them come to me and just get something I can handle.”
Through five games, Crews is hitting .421 with a 1.507 OPS. He is second on the team in runs, total bases, and walks with nine, 18, and four respectively. But with the type of player Crews is, he was not satisfied with the job already finished. After Wednesday’s loss to Louisiana Tech where he went 0-3 with two strikeouts, Crews felt he had to bounce back.
“He put in some good work the last couple of days on his own,” Jay Johnson said. “You can see he’s a game player. Obviously, the talent is limitless and he’s a smart player. He ironed out a few things on his own, which I’m proud of him for.”
With the run support Crews provided, Blake Money took control of the game and dominated the Towson lineup in seven innings of work, picking up seven strikeouts with just two walks and two hits. Money watched Crews’s moonshot from the home dugout and knew right away, despite a north wind blowing in from right field, that his center fielder had crushed it.
“He hit it and I saw it go up, and I was like ‘Where’s this going to hit?’” Money said. “Is it going to hit the ‘O’ in Box or is it going to clear the scoreboard?”
The top of the order is a dangerous strait to navigate for opposing pitchers. With Tre’ Morgan’s consistency at the top of the lineup and Berry and Doughty’s special ability to drive runners in surrounding Crews, LSU’s top half will be one of the most dangerous combos in SEC play this year.
It is hard to describe how good Crews is at every aspect of his game. With the combination of power, plate discipline and precision, his ability at the plate is a joy to witness as an objective fan of the game. Combine that with his speed, glove and work ethic, and there is truly no limit to how good he may become.
For now, he’ll probably just be thinking about that home run tonight. For guys like him, sometimes all it takes is one for the floodgates to open.