Monthly Archives: June 2015

17 Jun

pitching in

In a game notable primarily for the eight home runs belted by Baltimore hitters, former Mississippi Braves star Jeff Francoeur made his MLB pitching debut on Tuesday. It was an adventure, to say the least. The erstwhile outfielder threw 48 pitches, 25 for strikes, in two innings of mop-up duty in Philadelphia’s 19-3 loss. He struck out a batter, hit a batter, walked three and gave up a home run. The fact that he was left in for two innings — the bullpen phone was off the hook? — seemed to rile up Phillies second baseman Chase Utley, who reportedly was concerned Francoeur would hurt his arm. Francoeur, who has a cannon, pitched in high school and also threw in eight games in Triple-A in 2014. … Meanwhile, another ex-M-Braves standout, Charlie Morton, who actually pitches full-time, tossed seven shutout innings against the Chicago White Sox to lead Pittsburgh to its sixth straight victory, five of them shutouts. Morton is 5-0 with a 1.62 ERA in five starts for the surging Pirates. Morton was an unspectacular 4-6, 4.29 for the M-Braves in 2007, but he threw a memorable gem in the Southern League playoffs that likely boosted his career. He made the big leagues with Atlanta in 2008, then was traded to Pittsburgh the next year. … Then there’s Craig Kimbrel, the former M-Braves closer who now toils for San Diego. His outing against Oakland on Tuesday was almost as rocky as Francoeur’s. Kimbrel allowed a hit, two walks and the go-ahead run in a 6-5 loss. Though he has 16 saves, Kimbrel’s ERA this season is 3.81; his career mark is 1.63.

16 Jun

here and there

Ex-Southern Miss right-hander Christian Talley has signed as a free agent with the Colorado Rockies, the school announced today. USM had three pitchers drafted last week: Cody Carroll, Ryan Milton and Ferriss Trophy winner James McMahon, who was picked by the Rockies. … Stan Cliburn, the former Forest Hill High star from Jackson, recently notched his 1,500th win as a professional baseball manager. Cliburn’s Southern Maryland Blue Crabs are currently tied for first in the independent Atlantic League’s Freedom Division. One of his regulars is ex-big leaguer Fred Lewis, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College product who is batting .238 with 13 RBIs and 18 runs in 44 games. Cliburn, who also played in the big leagues, managed his first team in 1988 and has been working in pro ball ever since. His twin brother Stu, also an MLB vet, is the pitching coach for Chattanooga in the Southern League. … Former Hattiesburg High standout and onetime big leaguer Robert Carson has signed with Bridgeport of the Atlantic League. The big left-hander, 26, was recently released by the Los Angeles Dodgers on the heels of a 50-game drug suspension that cost him an invite to major league spring training. … Itawamba CC alum Tim Dillard is soldiering on in his 13th pro season. The onetime big leaguer, now 31, has a 4.24 ERA in 12 games for Triple-A Colorado Springs in the Milwaukee system. Dillard recently moved into the Sky Sox starting rotation. … Here’s a young player to watch: Mason Irby. The lefty-hitting catcher, a Southeast Lauderdale High product, was a second-team NJCAA Division II All-America pick as a freshman at Jones County Junior College this past season after batting .395 with three homers and 51 RBIs. He is playing for Niagara in the New York Collegiate Baseball League and at last look was hitting .359 with five doubles and six RBIs in 11 games.

16 Jun

showing up

A Jackson Generals player from years ago made the comment when asked what it took for him to get to the big leagues: “I just kept showing up.” Joey Butler, now starring for the Tampa Bay Rays as a 29-year-old rookie, apparently has that kind of resolve. Butler played at ’Goula, Perk and UNO. He’s been through Spokane, Bakersfield, Frisco, Surprise, Round Rock, Magallanes, Mazatlan, Memphis, Orix and Durham. He got his first taste of the big leagues in 2013 with Texas, his original organization (15th round, 2008). He got 12 at-bats. St. Louis, which had taken Butler on a waiver claim, called him up last year for five at-bats. Then he went to Japan. He came back to the States this spring but didn’t make the Rays’ roster out of camp. He went to Triple-A Durham. The Rays called on May 3 when Itawamba Community College alum Desmond Jennings went on the disabled list. Finally given an opportunity to play regularly in the majors, Butler has gone off: .344, four homers, 16 RBIs, 15 runs in 37 games. The Pascagoula native and ex-Mississippi Gulf Coast CC star is also said to be a great guy in the clubhouse. “I think the entire dugout gets excited when he comes to the plate …,” Rays manager Kevin Cash told saintpetersblog.com. There is something to be said for just showing up. P.S. On this date in 1945, Boo Ferriss lost a game for the first time in his big league career. The Shaw native and former Delta State coach had begun his rookie season with eight straight victories for the Boston Red Sox before losing a 3-2 decision to the New York Yankees. Ferriss would go 21-10 that year and 25-6 in ’46 before injuries curtailed his career.

15 Jun

caught short?

A quick check of Atlanta’s top 30 prospects on mlb.com reveals two catchers. Jose Briceno, No. 20, is hitting .156 at Class A Carolina. Tanner Murphy, No. 26, is batting .178 at low Class A Rome. Chris O’Dowd, a fringe prospect acquired in the off-season from Colorado, was hitting .304 for the Double-A Mississippi Braves when he was slapped last week with an 80-game drug suspension. Why is any of this relevant? Well, the Atlanta Braves sent “catcher of the future” Christian Bethancourt down to Triple-A Gwinnett. Relegated to backing up 38-year-old A.J. Pierzynski, Bethancourt, 23, was batting .208 with one home run and had five passed balls and three errors in his 27 games. Bethancourt, who has a rifle arm, seemed to have a breakthrough with the M-Braves in 2013, when he hit .277 with 12 homers and made the Southern League postseason All-Star team. He was a consensus top five prospect in the system after a solid season at Gwinnett in 2014. Atlanta essentially handed him the starting job this spring — and he fumbled it away in short order. Can he ever recover it? Is Atlanta shopping for a catcher? The Braves drafted five last week, two from four-year colleges and a second-rounder from a California high school. Maybe there’s a “catcher of the future” in that bunch. P.S. LSU lost its College World Series opener to TCU 10-3 on Sunday, but former Southwest Mississippi Community College star Kade Scivicque held up his end with a 2-for-4, one-RBI day. Scivicque, the Tigers’ catcher and cleanup batter, is hitting .350 with six homers and 46 RBIs on the season. LSU plays an elimination game on Tuesday. … Arkansas, facing elimination in the CWS tonight against Miami, has two Mississippi juco products on its roster, pitcher Jackson Lowery of Meridian CC and outfielder Krisjon Wilkerson of Pearl River CC. Neither appeared in Saturday’s 5-3 loss to Virginia.

15 Jun

that was quick

Billy Hamilton, on base three times for Cincinnati on Sunday, stole a career-high five bases and reached 100 career steals in just his 219th big league game. “He’s an extremely unique talent when it comes to speed,” Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon told mlb.com. Taylorsville native Hamilton leads MLB with 31 steals. He swiped 56 last year, trailing only Dee Gordon’s 64. It’s worth noting that the record for career steals by a Mississippi native is 223, by Gulfport’s Gerald “Gee” Walker, who played in the 1930s and ’40s. Vicksburg’s Ellis Burks is second on the list with 181, followed by Greenville’s Frank White (178), Gulfport’s Matt Lawton (165) and Ellisville’s Buddy Myer (156). The active leader is McComb native Jarrod Dyson, who has 126 bags, six this year for Kansas City. Hamilton, who plays more regularly than Dyson, will catch him soon enough. P.S. The New York Yankees sent Mississippi State product Jacob Lindgren to the minors. The rookie left-hander had a 5.14 ERA in seven innings, allowing three home runs and four walks with eight strikeouts. The 2014 second-round pick had not allowed a homer in 46 2/3 minor league innings while fanning 77 and walking 23.

15 Jun

tenacious oyster

The Biloxi Shuckers’ logo is described in the club’s press notes as a “tenacious oyster,” which might be a bit of a P.R. stretch, but tenacious could certainly be used to describe the team. The Shuckers, playing their inaugural season, clinched the first-half championship in the Southern League South on Sunday — with six games left in the half — by whipping the second-place Mississippi Braves 9-0 at a subdued Trustmark Park. The Shuckers (39-24, best record in the league) won this title despite playing all but five of their 63 games to date on the road. MGM Park in Biloxi didn’t open until June 6. This team (the former Huntsville Stars) is no fluke. The Shuckers have nine players headed to next week’s SL All-Star Game. They feature a bunch of the Milwaukee Brewers’ top prospects, including the No. 1 (outfielder Tyrone Taylor, 3-for-5 with two RBIs on Sunday), the No. 2 (shortstop Orlando Arcia, 2-for-5, two RBIs), the No. 14 (outfielder Michael Reed, 2-for-5, RBI) and the No. 19 (ex-M-Braves outfielder Kyle Wren, 2-for-5, two runs). Starting pitcher Brooks Hall ain’t bad, either. The 6-foot-5 right-hander allowed just two hits over eight innings to run his record to 7-3. He beat Atlanta prospect Jason Hursh (2-5), who took a shutout into the sixth, when the Shuckers erupted for five runs. They scored three more in the seventh and tacked on another in the ninth, long after the M-Braves had raised the white flag. Tenacious, indeed.

14 Jun

fun times

Chris Coghlan is not exactly tearing up the league, but you have to think he’s having fun. The Ole Miss product is part of a Chicago Cubs team that has been one of this season’s most riveting stories. The Cubs have a roster of blossoming young stars and a colorful, well-respected manager. And they are winning, which is something they were not doing when Coghlan joined the club in May of 2014. Those Cubs were stuck in the basement of the National League Central, where they had practically taken up residence. Coghlan, cut loose by Miami after the ’13 season, had signed with Chicago as a minor league free agent. He didn’t make the club out of spring training and was shipped to Triple-A. He got the call to Chicago to take the place of an injured player. Expectations were, uh, muted. But then the young players began to arrive … and to produce. Coghlan got hot, too. He wound up at .283 with nine homers, 41 RBIs and 50 runs in 125 games. The Cubs finished 73-89, their best record since 2010. Excitement grew in the off-season as they signed lefty Jon Lester, then hired Joe Maddon as skipper. Coghlan also was re-signed. The team has ridden the wave to a 33-27 record; they got their MLB-best seventh walk-off win on Saturday, beating Cincinnati 4-3 at Wrigley Field. They’re third in the NL Central, 7 games back of leader St. Louis. Coghlan, a lefty hitter, plays regularly in left field. He is batting just .243 but has hit at a .326 clip over his last 15 games. Eight of his 43 hits are home runs. He has driven in 18 runs, scored 21. Coghlan isn’t old — he’ll turn 30 on June 18 — but in the Cubs’ clubhouse, he may feel that way, surrounded by so many young players: Rizzo, Bryant, Russell, Hendricks, Castro, Alcantara, Soler, et al. Coghlan, drafted out of Ole Miss in 2006, has been in the big leagues, off and on, since 2009, when he was the NL’s rookie of the year for the Marlins. Five years and many injuries later, he was without an MLB job until the Cubs gave him that shot last May. “In six years, I’ve had a full realm,” Coghlan told the Chicago Sun-Times. Part of his role now is to spread that perspective to a young team that appears full of energy and hope. It has to be fun. P.S. Also having a jolly old time: Mitch Moreland and the Texas Rangers, who’ve won 10 of 14 to get to 33-29, nipping at the heels of Houston in the American League West. Former Mississippi State star Moreland, who has been raking since coming off a stint on the disabled list, is batting .310 with eight homers and 30 RBIs. His latest bomb came Saturday, a three-run shot that helped beat Minnesota 11-7 at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

13 Jun

picks who clicked

The record for most players drafted in one year by one team to reach the majors is 17 (1982, New York Mets), this according to Baseball America, which did a splendid retrospective on the MLB draft in a 50th anniversary tribute in the June 19-July 3 issue. Many of the players drafted that year by the Mets turned up on the Jackson Mets teams of 1984-87 that won two Texas League pennants and played for two more. Dwight Gooden, who didn’t play in Jackson, was the Mets’ top pick in ’82, and Rafael Palmeiro, who didn’t sign out of high school and went on to Mississippi State, was their eighth pick. Barry Lyons, the ex-Delta State star from Biloxi, was the 15th pick and starred on the ’85 JaxMets title team before going on to the big leagues. Other players of note in that draft include Roger McDowell, Greg Olson, Floyd Youmans, Steve Springer, Mickey Weston, Kyle Hartshorn, Joe Redfield and Al Carmichael, all of whom played at Smith-Wills Stadium. McDowell, Olson and Youmans enjoyed nice MLB careers. P.S. Ole Miss products Lance Lynn (St. Louis) and Aaron Barrett (Washington) have been put on the disabled list, leaving just five Mississippi-connected pitchers on active rosters in MLB. There have been as many as 11 this season. … Right-hander Mike Broadway, who pitched for the Mississippi Braves from 2009-11, was called up to the big leagues by San Francisco. He didn’t pitch on Friday, but Jesus Sucre did make his mound debut. The ex-M-Braves catcher worked a scoreless inning for Seattle in its 10-0 loss to Houston.

12 Jun

speed bump

After missing three straight games with a wrist ailment, Billy Hamilton is back in the Cincinnati lineup for today’s game against Chicago at Wrigley Field. The former Taylorsville High standout is hitting ninth for the injury-plagued Reds. Hamilton leads the majors in stolen bases with 25. The switch-hitting center fielder has three home runs, 17 RBIs and 29 runs in 51 games. He hasn’t made an error in 141 chances, and he has four assists. That’s the good stuff. On the flip side, he ranks 152nd in batting (.222) and 159th in on-base percentage (.264). He has walked only 12 times. Hamilton’s speed can be game-changing, but he has simply got to get on base more to have significant impact on the Reds’ won-lost record. Hamilton is only 24 in his second full MLB season, so he may yet improve. But how much time will the Reds give him?

11 Jun

down goes cozart

Zack Cozart is out for the season, the Cincinnati Reds have announced, KO’d by the knee injury suffered on Wednesday when he stumbled crossing first base. The former Ole Miss star, in his fifth big league season, was hitting .258 with nine homers and 28 RBIs while playing a smooth shortstop. … On a positive note, Corey Dickerson, the Meridian Community College alumnus, is in the Colorado lineup today, playing left field and batting sixth against Miami. Dickerson, out with plantar fasciitis in his left foot since May 18, is batting .306 with five homers and 16 RBIs for the Rockies.