If You Aren't Watching LSU's Dylan Crews, You're Missing One Of The Best Seasons In Baseball History
All the baseball talk I've seen in the last week has understandably been about MLB. I'm as excited as anyone that big league baseball is back. But there's a kid in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who's almost certainly going to be the No. 1 overall pick in this year's MLB Draft that's putting up a season the likes of which we've never seen before.
If you haven't watched Dylan Crews play baseball yet, find the next LSU game on national television and sit down to watch this guy hit. At the halfway point of the season, Crews is slashing .543/.664/.947 (1.611 OPS) with nine home runs and 35 RBI — that's a 162-game pace of 52 homers and 203 RBI, for those keeping track at home. And Crews has maintained those numbers through LSU's first three SEC series against No. 11 Texas A&M, No. 6 Arkansas and No. 10 Tennessee. If he hasn't slowed down yet, I'm not sure he's going to.
Keith Hagman of the University of New Mexico set the NCAA single-season batting average record at .551 in 1980 and I'm no longer convinced that's entirely safe. It seems impossible that any hitter going up against SEC pitching like we see today could finish with an average above .500, but I'm not willing to put anything past Crews this season. He's unreal.
If you're a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, you just need to spend the next three months praying that front office doesn't overthink the No. 1 pick.