August 9, 2017 - All Mississippi Baseball

compare and contrast

Brandon Woodruff makes his second big league start for Milwaukee tonight. The 24-year-old right-hander, a Wheeler High and Mississippi State alum, went 6 1/3 innings to beat Tampa Bay in his debut last Friday. At Miller Park tonight in the opener of a two-game set against Minnesota, Woodruff will be opposed by a slightly more experienced pitcher: Bartolo Colon. Colon is 44. He has made 517 MLB starts in a career that dates to 1997. He has logged 3,259 2/3 innings and posted 236 wins. Colon, who started this season with Atlanta, is just 3-9 with a 7.32 ERA in 2017 but threw a complete game against Texas his last time out. Both the Brewers and Twins are still playing meaningful games. The Brewers (59-56) are hot on the heels of the Chicago Cubs in the National League Central, while the Twins (55-56) are still hanging around in the American League Central race. “We’re never out of it,” former Southern Miss star Brian Dozier told The Associated Press after belting a grand slam in the Twins’ win over the Brewers on Tuesday. “I think that’s kind of the mentality that we’ve been sticking to.”

coming up big

The home run was big, but the single proved bigger for Bobby Bradley on Tuesday night. Bradley, the ex-Harrison Central High star, delivered a walk-off hit in the ninth inning for Akron in a 4-3 win against New Hampshire in the Double-A Eastern League. Bradley hit his 19th homer in the sixth, helping the Rubber Ducks rally from a 3-0 deficit. The lefty-hitting first baseman, 21, one of Cleveland’s highest-rated prospects, is batting .242 with 73 RBIs in his Double-A debut. Bradley has a .335 on-base percentage thanks in part to 49 walks, and he has cut down on strikeouts (95 in 364 at-bats) this year. He is slugging .456. A third-round pick by the Indians in 2014, he has blasted 83 homers in his four pro seasons. He’s getting close. … Former Petal High star Anthony Alford, one of Toronto’s top prospects, was in New Hampshire’s lineup and went 1-for-4. Alford, 23, batting .308 in his first Class AA campaign, got a cup of coffee in the majors earlier this season before an injury knocked him back to the minors. He’ll likely return to the Blue Jays next month. P.S. Former Ole Miss and Mississippi Braves standout Chris Ellis notched his second straight win for Springfield, St. Louis’ Double-A club in the Texas League, on Tuesday. Ellis, who scuffled at Triple-A Memphis to start 2017, is 4-6, 3.60 ERA at Springfield. … Mississippi State product Zac Houston recently was elevated from low-A to high-A ball in the Detroit system. The 6-foot-5 right-hander, a 2016 draftee, has thrown 2 2/3 scoreless innings in his two appearances for Lakeland, where he has joined fellow Mississippians Will Allen, Jake Robson and Spencer Turnbull.