LSU Baseball Preparing for Critical Home Series With No. 1 Arkansas
Dylan Crews heard some pretty brutal things in right field last weekend against Ole Miss. For the true freshman entering his first hostile environment packed to the max, it was an eye opening experience. Now, he's looking forward to a big reason why he committed to LSU in the first place, a packed Alex Box Stadium in an SEC series.
The student section out in right field has come out in droves this season to cheer the Tigers on but one of the entertaining parts has been the connection with Crews out in right field. They'll shout questions to him from the bleachers and chant his name.
"Crews, right hand for Raising Canes, left hand for Chick-Fil-A," Crews recalls one of the questions. He raised a hand but wouldn't say which.
This weekend, Crews and the entire LSU program look forward to seeing a packed Alex Box Stadium when No. 1 Arkansas comes to town, a critical series for the purple and gold to get back in the postseason hunt.
"I'm going to get better treatment out there than I did at Ole Miss that's for sure," Crews said. "They killed me out there. I'm ready to perform this weekend and hopefully we win the series.
Arkansas hasn't won a series in Alex Box since 2004, and have only taken a series from LSU twice during that span. It's a record that Paul Mainieri doesn't put much stock into, but rather says that the Razorbacks just bring out the best in the Tigers year in and year out.
This Razorbacks team is loaded with talent and power on offense as they've hit a league leading 74 home runs heading into this weekend's series with the Tigers. The last time LSU faced a No. 1 team in Alex Box, Vanderbilt, it didn't go smoothly but this team is in a much different spot than it was a month ago.
Giovanni DiGiacomo has returned to the lineup and is batting well over .300 this season and the young hitters like Tre Morgan, Crews and Jordan Thompson have each taken significant steps in their development over the last three weeks.
Left fielder Gavin Dugas, who was battling back spasms earlier this week and is among the leaders in home runs and RBI for this offense, is feeling much better according to Paul Mainieri and is expected to play.
"They're a complete team, they have a lot of power," Mainieri said about Arkansas. "They're the No. 1 team in the country for good reason and it'll be a tremendous challenge for us. We've always had great series with Arkansas, great competition. They play hard with a lot of passion and has made for really good college baseball."
Like it was mentioned, this is a critical series for the Tigers as it'll be the sixth top 10 opponent this team has faced to this point in conference play. When Mainieri was asked how much he looks at the standings, he said every day but that what the team needs to do hasn't been approached with the players.
Crews said Thursday the players know what needs to be done over the final month to put LSU in a postseason position and that starts with wins over the No. 1 Razorbacks.
"We definitely understand what we have to do to get in the postseason," Crews said. "We're controlling what we can control, we're taking every game like it's our last and giving it all we got because we don't know what will happen in the future. We definitely have that on our minds."