Alabama Baseball's Home Runs are Starting to Pile Up

The Alabama baseball bats are starting to heat up in a big way from a power standpoint.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Through the first two games of the 2024 season, the No. 17 Alabama baseball team (4-0) had not hit any home runs. In the second game of the campaign, the Crimson Tide posted a 15-spot in the scoring column against Manhattan College, yet none of the baseballs sailed over the walls of Sewell-Thomas Stadium.

First-year head coach Rob Vaughn wasn't worried. Power, he believed, was a given with his group. It would come eventually. "[There] are just adjustments at the beginning of the year," he said. Besides, the park didn't play offensively on cold days. 

As the adage goes, when it rains, it pours. By the end of the night on Tuesday, the team had hit eight home runs in its past two contests and there were multiple players with more than one long ball on their season tallies. It started on Sunday, when freshman shortstop Justin Lebron took the first pitch of his third-inning plate appearance deep to the outfield and turned it into an inside-the-parker. In that same inning, center fielder TJ McCants lifted the opening pitch of his at-bat to the right field terrace. 

"I'm probably gonna see [off-speed pitches] all season," he stated, a point he's brought up more than once. He hasn't gotten as many fastballs. Perhaps there's a good reason for that, but he has been adept at stringing together quality at-bats in his turns at the plate, and that includes coming around well on some of the breaking stuff. In the very next inning after McCants became the first player to hit a ball out of The Joe this spring, right fielder Evan Sleight sent an opposite-field shot to left. The outfielders played good offensive baseball all weekend long. 

"What we really did is just stuck to the plan that the coaches made for us," Sleight said. "We squared a couple more balls up and the wind was blowing a little bit different today [Sunday]. We got some good angle to them. It's something we're capable of. We're just gonna keep sticking [with] the approach." Vaughn said assistant coach Anthony Papio has been preparing the players with concrete plans for their approaches that they can be confident in.

New first baseman Will Hodo was next to join the party, swinging on a 3-0 offering in the sixth inning and granting the fans in right field another opportunity at a souvenir. Finally, the fifth home run of the afternoon went out in the eighth frame off the bat of leadoff man Gage Miller. Every lineup card so far this year has featured his name at the top, either at third base or designated hitter. He flashed his power in the fall and in the immediate build to the regular season schedule. 

Miller again stepped up as the first person to bat for the home team on Tuesday against Middle Tennessee, the first of two midweeks on the docket for the team prior to its second weekend series. After striking out for the second time during inning number three, he watched McCants sneak one just inside the foul pole for a two-run home run. He was a disappointing 0-for-4 before he came to bat in the eighth and became the second leg of a back-to-back with second baseman Bryce Eblin. It was the third Alabama home run of the game. "It was more perplexing him," said Vaughn. "Like, 'Gage, you're getting blown up by 86 [miles per hour], brother. Can we not get blown up on this next at-bat?' But I don't think anyone in this dugout is worried, stressed, concerned. That guy is a dangerous, dangerous man with the bat in his hands."

Eblin's home run followed his very first hit of the season, a fifth-inning triple. He scored three runs against the Blue Raiders and turned the lineup card over to Miller in the home eighth with a bang. He'd wanted to get good contact on a line drive. "I was happy it went out. It was pretty big." At that moment, it was still a three-run game. The versatile defender who had an incredible summer also has a lot of pop in his bat. Eblin actually hit one of the longer fly balls by either team on Opening Day, but the main problem there was that it went well foul and bounced off a tent on the concourse.

This offensive power surge brought the Crimson Tide to its present total of eight home runs combined in two games. That'll play. This is all largely absent the contributions of designated hitter Camden Hayslip, who has played just twice after he tweaked his thumb three days before the opener. Hayslip wanted to play in the first game and got his wish, drawing a walk but striking out in his other trips. On two different occasions against the Blue Raiders, a right-handed hurler was taken out in favor of a southpaw when it was time for the left-handed Hayslip to hit. If one is postulating as to the principal reasons Middle Tennessee trotted out seven pitchers opposite Alabama, that item has to be in the conversation.

"If you roll in and watch that dude take B.P. [batting practice], you probably ain't throwing too many flat fastballs [right] down the middle," Vaughn said. "He has swung the bat unbelievable in the preseason. Had an unbelievable fall... The big growth I've seen in 'Slip this fall is really commanding the zone and not letting it get fast. It's a hard thing when you take a week off and you're trying to hop back in there and do that. When that guy gets in the right count, man, buckle up."

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No. 17 Alabama Baseball Slides Past Middle Tennessee in First Midweek Contest