CLEMSON — While some might have questioned Erik Bakich’s decision to stick with Ty Dalley through some early-season struggles, for the Clemson head coach, inserting him into the lineup every day is a no-brainer.
Make no mistake, the Mercer transfer has experienced his fair share of struggles over the first few weeks of the season, but Bakich saw enough in the fall and preseason to make him a believer. Not to mention what he did during his three seasons at Mercer.
In fact, Dalley’s early struggles have reminded him of another one of his star players going through a similar slump two seasons ago.
“I think back to Will Taylor two years ago, he was 0-for February and half of March,” Bakich said. “Then all of a sudden he has a game when he has three homers, and then it was just on. Ty didn’t have three homers, but just his swings the last couple of days have been better. He’s been using the entire field. He has turned around 96-97 twice.”
However, it looks like Dalley might be starting to come around. After totaling just 12 hits coming into the Georgia Tech series, the senior outfielder had a combined five hits over the three-game set against the Yellow Jackets. Dalley’s best game of the season came in Saturday’s 13-7 win. He was 3-for-4 at the plate and drove in three runs. He’d only driven in 14 runs total coming into Saturday. He has his average up to .262.
However, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Even on some of his outs of late, he’s hit the ball on the button, just right at defenders. And he’s been using the whole field. For that reason, Bakich is confident that Dalley is on the cusp of really breaking out.
“It just looks different, it looks right,” Bakich added. “We’ve given him the leash even though he hasn’t been in the program because he has the credentials that he has. Nobody has the credentials that he has. He is the Division 1 home run leader.”
Prior to arriving at Clemson, Dalley was the king of the long ball. He hit 18 homers as a freshman at Mercer, then 21 during his sophomore season before belting 19 more as a junior. During those three seasons, he never drove in fewer than 56 runs.
Producing at that kind of level over that period of time proves what Dalley is capable of. No matter the level. That’s part of the reason why his leash has been so long, and Bakich has every intention of letting him try and hit his way out of it.
“It is certainly in there,” Bakich said. ” We didn’t want to give up on it. And we saw it all fall and all preseason. He just unfortunately got off to a slow start. But to see him make the adjustments and start to have some success gives us a lot of confidence that there is a lot more good stuff to come from him.”
