We’ve Never Seen a Dylan Crews Before

Let’s appreciate these next three months

LSU fans have seen many superstars play baseball. Alex Bregman, Todd Walker, Ben McDonald, Eddy Furniss, Albert Belle, Aaron Nola, Lyle Mouton, Mikie Mahtook and plenty more all played in (an) Alex Box Stadium. And yet, Dylan Crews might be the best of all of them.

I won’t go into great details about the numbers because we covered it extensively in our story about him being named SEC Player of the Week, but they’re so insane we have to talk about them.

The SEC record for single-season batting average is .525 by Dave Magadan in 1983. It’s hard to say what Crews is on pace for, since everyone’s average goes down in conference play, which we’re only two weeks into.

SIKE! Crews’ average has gone up in his six SEC games.

The NCAA D-1 record for single-season batting average is .551 by New Mexico’s Keith Hagman in 1980. If Crews hits every opponent the way he did a Top 5 Arkansas squad, he will top that. Will he? Probably not. But he certainly can!

With these two numbers in play, the rest of Crews’ season will be defined by the chase. You probably remember Raph Rhymes’ 2012 campaign and as great as it was, you could tell at times the pressure of every at-bat weighed on him. I remember watching and being way too nervous for an AB where LSU was up 9-1. Will Dylan Crews face the same pressure? Probably. Will it affect him? Based on what we’ve seen from the guy, I’m not convinced it will.

Normally I would outright refuse to make declarative statements about a player one month into the season, but because people who have seen way more baseball than I are already doing it. Listen to what Bill Franques and Jay Johnson said.

I truly hate comparative-based discourse. Comparison if the thief of joy. If I never heard another LeBron vs Jordan or 2019 LSU vs 2001 Miami debate it would be too soon. But honestly, I don’t think there’s going to be much of a debate anymore. We all knew Joe Burrow was the best LSU quarterback ever six games into the 2019 season, but the next 9 games cemented him as the best player ever. Crews is about to do the same and we should enjoy every second of it.

For as talented as he’s been from the first pitch, Crews’ accomplishments are still entirely on the stats page. He has yet to play a game in Omaha, or even a postseason game at the Box. That’s obviously not his fault, but it does add weight to this team’s expectations. Chances are they will lose one or two SEC series, and the odds are even greater LSU fans will have a meltdown if it happens. But that’s a loss on our part.

Jay Johnson will continue getting immensely talented baseball players to come here out of high school and the transfer portal and they will win a lot of games, but none of them will be Dylan Crews. He is a major leaguer playing in college. His 2023 campaign is constantly being compared to Joe Burrow’s 2019 season and while I think it’s too early to declare something like that, there is one sentence that describes them both to me: a professional athlete still playing in college.

Once the calendar turns to June and LSU is officially playing for a championship, then I will understand emotionally flying off the handle at every first pitch pop fly. But for the next two months, we get to watch likely the best LSU baseball player ever clobber helpless pitchers. LSU will win most of those games, hell, we just need them to win enough to be Top 8. So let’s enjoy them as best we can. Don’t get caught up in the numbers debates or pro comparisons, enjoy his play for what it is. We’ve never seen a Dylan Crews before and there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see one again.

Oh and LSU also might have the best ace pitcher since Ben McDonald. If this team doesn’t win it all there will be actual riots lol.