downtime

Having chosen baseball over football as a career, ex-Itawamba Community College star Desmond Jennings has found that injuries can be a problem in the summer game, too. The Tampa Bay outfielder spent chunks of time on the disabled list in 2012 and ’13 and missed most of 2015 with knee ailments and a tooth infection. “I don’t know how much lower you can go from here. It is what it is,” Jennings, who played in just 28 games last year, told mlb.com. Jennings, an Alabama football recruit years ago, was once the heir apparent to B.J. Upton in center field for the Rays, but he was displaced there by Kevin Kiermaier. New acquisition Corey Dickerson, the Meridian CC product, is expected to start in left field, which likely puts Jennings – who recently signed a $3.3M contract for 2016 — on the bench. A trade is possible for the 29-year-old Jennings, who has a .249 career average with 48 homers and 93 steals over parts of six MLB seasons.