02 May

minor matters

It would be hard to find anyone in the minors swinging a hotter bat than Austin Riley, the DeSoto Central High alum who is on a 13-for-24 roll with five home runs, nine RBIs and nine runs in this stretch. For the year at Triple-A Gwinnett in Atlanta’s system, Riley (see previous post) is batting .293 with seven homers, including a 492-foot blast he hit Wednesday. … At Double-A Mississippi, Drew Waters extended his hit streak to five games with a 2-for-4 effort and is at .327 with two homers, nine RBIs and 17 runs. Cristian Pache also went 2-for-4 to boost his average to .330 with two bombs and 17 RBIs. … Ole Miss product Chris Ellis may be experiencing a letdown back in Triple-A with St. Louis. After posting a scoreless inning in his MLB debut for Kansas City last month, the Rule 5 draftee was dropped from the Royals’ active roster and returned to the Cardinals. He has allowed nine earned runs in four relief appearances at Memphis. … Mississippi State product Hunter Stovall, traded by Colorado to Philadelphia last week, went 1-for-4 with a triple in his debut Wednesday at Class A Lakeland. He was batting .281 for Asheville in the same league. … Ex-UM and Pearl River Community College standout Braxton Lee, who briefly made the big leagues with Miami in 2018, is hitting .296 in Double-A with the New York Mets. … MSU product Brent Rooker has been out of the lineup for several days at Triple-A Rochester (Minnesota), where the highly rated prospect is hitting .214 with four homers. … Former Columbia High star Ti’Quan Forbes has heated up for Double-A Birmingham (Chicago White Sox), hitting .303 over his last 10 games to get to .243 for the year. … Petal’s Demarcus Evans and Houlka’s Tyreque Reed, two rising young stars in the Texas system, are holding their own at high-A Down East. Evans has a 1.64 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 11 innings, while Reed is batting .314 with three homers in his last 10 games. … Former Petal High standout Anthony Alford is skidding in the wrong direction at Triple-A Buffalo in Toronto’s organization. The onetime big leaguer is in a 2-for-32 slump that has dropped his average to .138. Also on that Buffalo club are UM alum Jacob Waguespack (2-2, 4.62 ERA as a starter) and ex-Southern Miss star Conor Fisk (6.00 ERA in 12 innings). … Stuart Turner, an Ole Miss product who spent the 2017 season in the big leagues with Cincinnati, was released this spring and then recently re-signed by the Reds. He is 2-for-16 in four games for Triple-A Louisville.

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