The LSU baseball team strides into the 2008 College World Series with 19 more wins than the 2007 team earned, making it evident that Tiger baseball is back on the prowl. LSU has already hit nearly two and a half times as many home runs as the 2007 club, and a big part of the power surge this year has been sophomore designated hitter Blake Dean. Dean leads the team with a .359 batting average and is No. 2 with 20 home runs – despite being recruited to LSU primarily for his pitching. “A year ago – I’m talking about his freshman year – before we ever practiced officially, he was taking some cuts in the batting cages one day,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “I happened to be walking by, and I stopped and watched him take about five cuts. And I turned to Beau Lowery, our trainer, and said, ‘Who’s that?'” Mainieri said he immediately recognized Dean’s potential and told Lowery he could be an all-Southeastern Conference hitter. “There’s something about left-handed swings that makes them prettier than right-handed swings to start with,” Mainieri said. “And there’s certainly left-handed swings that stand out above others, and I think Blake Dean’s is one of those. He has this remarkable hand-eye coordination and the fluidness of his swing – it’s something that’s very difficult to coach.” Dean came to LSU primarily as a pitcher but expected to be a two-way player. The Crestview, Fla., native said the transition to being a full-time hitter was not difficult because he had experience hitting in high school. “I always played a position in high school before I came here,” Dean said. “So I had always worked on hitting and stuff like that, and I continued to do it when I came here because I was recruited by [former LSU coach] Smoke [Laval] and [former LSU assistant coach and recruiting coordinator] Turtle [Thomas]. They told me I could two-way if I wanted to and could keep up with all the work.” Dean said the only change in his hitting was he had to face better pitching at the college level. “There’s a transition, obviously, because the pitching is better,” Dean said. “You see a faster velocity you’ve got to get used to, but overall hitting is hitting. You go up there with the same approach you do your whole life. There’s a few minor adjustments but nothing huge.” Perhaps the biggest obstacle in Dean’s young career may have had little to do with what position he might play. Before he even had a chance to play a regular season game for LSU, the freshman broke his right wrist in October 2006. Dean’s father, Mike Dean, said he was nervous when Lowery first called him with the news. He said he was pleased with how the training staff approached the injury. “I was pretty paranoid about it when I first got the call from Beau Lowery, the trainer,” Mike Dean said. Mike Dean said he first asked Lowery whether his son’s injury was career ending. He said the LSU training staff handled the situation “in a first-class manner.” “They were very proactive with being aggressive and jumping on it real quick and taking care of it,” Mike Dean said. Dean returned from the broken wrist quickly enough to start all 56 games for LSU his freshman season, during that time he began to settle into his role as designated hitter. “During the course of the year, we took him out of the outfield and put him at DH, so we could rest his arm,” Mainieri said. “So that could give it a chance to come back and be able to pitch, but it just never really rebounded the way that we had hoped that it would. So really it wasn’t even decided until the season was over that probably his pitching days were over.” Dean finished the season with a team-high .316 batting average and tied for team high with seven home runs. Dean also began his sophomore season quickly with four homers in the opening weeks of the season, but then hit a slump and did not collect another long ball until a two-home run game against Arkansas on March 22. Mike Dean said the cold streak might have made gotten inside his son’s head. “I don’t know if he was getting down,” Mike Dean said. “I told him he was hitting the ball hard. I told him just to keep swinging the bat, hitting hard and he’d find holes. He was putting a lot of pressure on himself.” But by postseason, Dean had certainly turned things around. And he said he always knew he would break out of his early slump. “I jumped out to about four or five home runs,” Dean said. “I got that pretty quick, and then was just kind of even keel. But I knew in my mind somewhere that it was going to come around, and things were going to get better. And that’s about the only way it could go.” He now leads the team in batting average and RBIs, is No. 2 in home runs and has helped the Tigers reach the College World Series for the first time since 2004. The Tigers have won 25 of their past 26 games as they enter their College World Series opener Sunday against North Carolina. Mike Dean said he told his son during the recruiting process that LSU was where he needed to be if he wanted to reach college baseball’s biggest stage. “I said, ‘Son, if you want to go play in a College World Series, there’s two teams east of the Mississippi River you’ve got to choose from: LSU and Miami,'” Mike Dean said. “And I said, ‘LSU’s probably where you need to go. It’s only a four-hour drive. The fan base is the largest in the United States … They’ve got five College World Series under their belt. They have passionate, very passionate fans that support their programs. And if I was you, that’s where I’d go.”
—-Contact Jerit Roser at [email protected]