Dylan Crews learning to handle professional pitching in double AA

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“It just kind of sucks that [injury] happened right there,” Crews said. “I was feeling great up there, feeling good. [I’m] trying to continue that run now that I’m back.”

Crews is hitting .224 with a .296 on-base percentage and two home runs in 12 games. He’s 1 for 8 with seven strikeouts since he returned from the injury. For the season, he has just three walks and 20 strikeouts, a concerning ratio considering that his bat-to-ball skills made him such a highly touted prospect.

“I just think that, in time, he’s going to be as good as everyone feels like he’s going to be,” Harrisburg Manager Delino DeShields said. “The potential is there. It’s just a matter of him figuring some things out and letting things happen organically.”

Crews has always been aggressive at the plate. But at Class AA, where pitchers have better breaking pitches that they can command in the strike zone, he has seen his approach used against him. The 22-year-old said this level has exposed him to the best pitching he has seen so far.

“It’s a different level of studying, for sure,” he said. “You got the guys that got the induced vertical break now. You got the guys that got the horizontal break now. Velocity is a big thing now. You see guys that got 92, 93 [mph] in college. But the guys that got 92, 93 here, it’s a whole lot different.”

Harrisburg hitting coach Jeff Livesey has talked with Crews about staying within an imaginary door frame while he’s at the plate. Crews’s aggression can lead to him striding too far toward the pitcher instead of letting the ball come to him. As a result, he can end up out in front and get under the ball. And Crews’s head moves when he strides too far, Livesey has counseled, making the pitch seem as though it’s getting to him more quickly than it is. Staying within that door frame helps him remain square and drive the ball.

“He’s really aggressive, which is great,” Livesey said. “But as the pitching gets better and as you move up in this game, you have to keep that aggression under control a little bit. When you’re overly aggressive, you kind of speed the game up. He’s starting to slow the game down a little bit and just barrel balls like he can and just swing at the right pitches.”

Crews has adjustments ahead, which makes his presence on the field even more important. Now it’s all about finding a rhythm as he settles back into his routine.

“I feel great now,” Crews said Tuesday. “Today’s the best I’ve felt since it happened. I honestly felt like myself out there today.”

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