Monthly Archives: August 2015

08 Aug

going into battle

The St. Louis Cardinals’ lineup doesn’t blow you away with star power, and their pitching staff has been without its ace, Adam Wainwright, all season. And yet here they are with 70 wins, most in the majors. They’re a playoff contender every year. What the Cardinals do is battle, every inning, every game, every season. Case in point: Former Ole Miss star Lance Lynn on Friday night at Milwaukee. Lynn didn’t have command of his fastball, which he relies on heavily. He allowed six hits and four walks in six innings. But he didn’t allow a Brewer to cross the plate. He battled, and St. Louis won 6-0. Milwaukee had two runners on in three of the first four innings and the bases loaded in the sixth. Lynn got out of that final mess with a strikeout, his seventh of the game. “With runners in scoring position, I was able to make a pitch,” the big right-hander told The Associated Press. Lynn, who missed some time with an injury this year, is 9-6 with a 2.76 ERA. He has 136 K’s in 127 1/3 innings. He has won 57 games since moving into the St. Louis rotation in 2012, throwing mostly fastballs. And battling.

07 Aug

random numbers

8 – Hits, including three doubles, a triple and a home run, by Austin Riley in six games for Danville, Atlanta’s advanced rookie team. The former DeSoto Central High star, the 41st overall pick in the June draft, was promoted last week from the Gulf Coast League, where he had seven homers and 21 RBIs.
.349 – Batting average over 73 games for Adam Frazier, the ex-Mississippi State standout now playing at Double-A Altoona in the Pittsburgh system. Frazier, playing shortstop and center field, has 10 hits in his last six games.
2 – Innings pitched in pro ball this season by Jacob Taylor, the Pearl River Community College product drafted in the fourth round by Pittsburgh. Taylor recently had Tommy John surgery and may not pitch again until 2017.
9 – Holds by Tony Sipp, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College alum from Pascagoula, for the Houston Astros. Sipp pitched a clean inning Thursday in the first-place Astros’ 5-4 win against Oakland and lowered his ERA to 2.52.
9 – Hits, in 27 at-bats, for Daniel Castro, the Mississippi Braves alumnus who has been filling in at shortstop in Atlanta for injured Andrelton Simmons. Castro had three hits and scored twice in Thursday’s 9-8 win over Miami.
41 – Stolen bases by Tim Anderson, the ex-East Central Community College star now playing at Double-A Birmingham in the Chicago White Sox’s system. Anderson, batting .302, leads all of Double-A in steals and leads the Southern League in hits (126) and runs (62).
4.60 – Aaron Barrett’s ERA for Washington when the Nationals sent the Ole Miss product to Triple-A on Thursday. Barrett had a 2.66 in 2014.
23 – Home runs in 2015 by the Mississippi Braves, including Kevin Ahrens’ game-winner on Thursday against Montgomery. The M-Braves are dead last in the SL in homers; ninth-place Biloxi has 47. Ahrens leads the team with five.
1,220 — Hits in pro ball, including 38 in the big leagues, by Brandon Jones, the ex-Mississippi Braves star who announced his retirement during his 12th season on Wednesday. He was playing for Bridgeport in the independent Atlantic League and batting .243.
18 – Strikeouts, in 15 innings for Pensacola, by Cody Reed, the Northwest Mississippi Community College product who moved from the Kansas City organization to Cincinnati in the Johnny Cueto trade. Lefty Reed is 2-0 with one run allowed in two starts for the Southern League’s Blue Wahoos.

06 Aug

the heat is on

Be careful what you wish for? Jonathan Papelbon got his wish: a trade to a contending team. Strangely enough, the Washington Nationals are 3-5 since the Mississippi State alum joined the team and have lost five of six. They are just 55-51 now and have dropped 2 games behind the surging New York Mets in the National League East. Can’t blame Papelbon for any of this; he is 2-for-2 in saves with the Nationals and has yielded just one earned run in three appearances. He never got up on Wednesday. The Nats had a 2-1 lead on visiting Arizona in the sixth inning, but with Ole Miss product Aaron Barrett on the hill, the game slipped away. Barrett got just one out, allowing four hits and three runs (plus an inherited runner scored), and he committed a costly throwing error. Down 11-2 in the ninth, Washington resorted to using outfielder/first baseman Tyler Moore on the mound, and the ex-State star got the last two outs. Crazy. … Also on the skids is Minnesota, which has lost four in a row and 13 of 18. The Twins (54-53) are 9.5 games behind first-place Kansas City in the American League Central and 2 games out of the wild card picture. The Twins’ slump coincides with the struggles of former Southern Miss star Brian Dozier, the team catalyst who is batting .180 with six runs over his last 15 games. … On the flip side, Texas is sizzling (again), and former Bulldogs standout Mitch Moreland continues to swing a hot bat. The Rangers (54-53) beat Houston 4-3 on Wednesday to complete a sweep of their AL West rival and move within 5 games of the first-place Astros. Moreland went 2-for-4 with an RBI in Wednesday’s win, Texas’ seventh in eight games. He is batting .318 with six RBIs over his last seven games and is at .287 with 16 homers and 57 RBIs for the year. P.S. Props to Jeff Francoeur, the former Mississippi Braves star who ought to get consideration for comeback player of the year. Frenchy hit his 10th homer of the season for Philadelphia on Wednesday and is batting .276 with 35 RBIs in 214 at-bats.

05 Aug

finishing touch

For Mississippi Braves right-hander Jason Hursh, change has done him good. Since moving from the rotation to the bullpen in early July, Hursh has a 2.25 ERA, a win and two saves in nine appearances. He has allowed 11 hits and two walks with nine strikeouts in 12 innings out of the pen. Atlanta’s No. 13-rated prospect (by mlb.com) entering this season, the 2013 first-round pick had been erratic as a starter: 2-6, 5.63 ERA this season after going 11-7, 3.58 at the Double-A level a year ago. Hursh got the W on Tuesday night, working a scoreless frame in a 7-6, 11-inning decision against Montgomery that moved the M-Braves’ record to 21-17 in the second half. They are 2.5 games out of first in the Southern League South. The club ranks ninth in the 10-team league in runs and last in slugging and homers, but pitching may just keep them in the playoff hunt. The staff includes six of Atlanta’s current top 30 prospects: Lucas Sims (No. 8), Murrah High alum Zack Bird (13), Hursh (now 18), Mauricio Cabrera (22), John Gant (24) and Stephen Janas (30). The M-Braves have a solid 3.53 ERA with an SL-best 38 saves and have allowed the fewest home runs in the league. Gant (1-0, 1.59) goes tonight against the Biscuits at Trustmark Park in his second start since coming over from the New York Mets in one of last week’s trades.

04 Aug

the winding road

In his 11th pro season, and still without a day in the big leagues, Corey Wimberly shows no signs of slowing down. The former Alcorn State star is playing for Yucatan in the Mexican League and hitting .333 with a league-leading 85 runs and 29 stolen bases. He had a four-hit game on Sunday, his second four-hit game during a current seven-game streak during which he has 16 hits. The 31-year-old Wimberly, a switch-hitter, is playing center field and batting leadoff for Yucatan, which is in first place in the Triple-A caliber league. It would seem that a major league club could use a player with Wimberly’s skills; he’s a .294 career hitter with 336 steals. He was in the Minnesota system last year, the seventh MLB organization he has played for since Colorado drafted him in 2005. P.S. No longer playing in Mexico – though apparently not officially retired — is Hattiesburg’s John Lindsey, who began this season, his 21st in pro ball, with Tijuana. Lindsey, who got 12 MLB at-bats in 2010, was hitting .262 with three homers and 13 RBIs when he was released in late June. Lindsey, 38, homered in his final game for Tijuana on June 26. If that were indeed the last game of his career, it would be fitting that he went out with a blast. The big slugger has 331 homers all told in pro ball; he hit No. 1 in 1995 in rookie ball for the Rockies.

03 Aug

cream of crop

Mississippi high school products dominated MLBPipeline.com’s Prospect Team of the Week for July 27-Aug. 2. The 10-member team includes DeSoto Central’s Austin Riley (who hit .393 with three homers and 13 RBIs for Atlanta’s Gulf Coast League team) at third base; Harrison Central’s Bobby Bradley (.381, four, nine in A-ball for Cleveland) at first base; and Richton’s JaCoby Jones (.409, three, eight in Double-A for Pittsburgh and Detroit) at shortstop. Also on the team is former Mississippi Braves star Jose Peraza (.435, six runs in Triple-A for Atlanta and the Los Angeles Dodgers) at second base. P.S. Ole Miss product Christian Trent and East Mississippi Community College alum LeDarious Clark will be on opposing sides in Tuesday’s Pioneer League-Northwest League All-Star Game at Spokane, Wash. This is the first All-Star matchup between the two short-season Class A leagues. Trent, a left-hander picked in the 24th round in June by Milwaukee, is 2-1 with a 4.01 ERA in seven appearances for Helena of the PL. Outfielder Clark, a 12th-rounder by Texas, is batting .307 with eight homers, 20 RBIs and 19 steals for Spokane of the NWL. Clark, currently in the throes of a 2-for-36 slump, was pulled from a game last week for not running out a pop-up but was back in the lineup the next day.

03 Aug

here and there

The list of Mississippians to play for the Mississippi Braves will grow tonight when Jackson native Zack Bird makes his Double-A debut at Trustmark Park in Pearl. Former Murrah High star Bird joins a group that includes Jay Powell, Michael Rosamond, John Thomson, Van Pope and Brent Leach. Powell (West Lauderdale High), Rosamond (Madison Central), Pope (Terry) and Leach (Brandon) were prep and college stars in the state. Thomson, a Vicksburg native who appeared with the M-Braves on two different major league rehab assignments, went to high school in Sulphur, La. A number of Mississippi natives also played for Jackson’s old Texas League franchise, including Murrah product Fletcher Thompson, the second baseman for the 1993 pennant-winning Generals. Bird, acquired last week from the Los Angeles Dodgers, was 5-7 with a 4.75 ERA in 19 games (17 starts) at the high Class A level this season. … The Tippah Tribe beat the Tupelo Thunder 5-1 on Sunday in New Albany to claim the Cotton States League championship. Northwest Mississippi Community College alum Stephen Sexton and Bryan Ray Jr. homered for the Tribe. … Former Southern Miss star Brian Dozier matched his career-high for homers with No. 23 for Minnesota on Sunday; the Tupelo native, now in his fourth MLB season, has 70 career homers. … Taylorsville High product Billy Hamilton is 51-for-58 on steal attempts this season for Cincinnati, an 88 percent success rate. His 2014 rate was 71 percent; he was thrown out an MLB-high 23 times while stealing 56 bases. … McComb native and Meridian CC alum Corey Dickerson is back on Colorado’s disabled list, his third trip of the year, this time due to broken ribs. He has played just 43 games, hitting .315 with five homers. … Former Itawamba CC standout Desmond Jennings is 1-for-5 in two rehab games at Triple-A Durham. Out since April with a knee problem, he figures to rejoin the Tampa Bay club sometime soon. … Last but hardly least, ex-Richton High star JaCoby Jones hit three homers for Erie on Sunday, his third game with Detroit’s Double-A club since he was traded last week (for Joakim Soria) by Pittsburgh. Jones, a shortstop, had 10 homers in A-ball this season and 23 in 2014.

02 Aug

there it is

Bobby Bradley, the former Harrison Central High star, has rediscovered his home run swing. The lefty-hitting first baseman jacked two homers Saturday night for Lake County in the Cleveland organization and has four in his last five games. “Just trying not to do too much at the plate,” Bradley told milb.com. Bradley hit five bombs in eight days during a stretch in early June, then cooled off a bit. He had hit only one in July before going yard on Tuesday, then added another homer on Wednesday. He now has 18 for the year, tops in the Class A Midwest League, to go with a .252 average and 57 RBIs. Bradley has fanned 112 times in 294 at-bats, but at age 19 and in just his second pro season, his plate discipline will surely improve. He was the rookie-level Arizona League MVP in 2014, when he hit eight homers in 39 games, and took a big step up to the MWL this year.

02 Aug

the lost boys

To the victors go the spoils, including the flowery prose that is written when significant anniversaries of their great moments come around. Mississippi has seen its fair share of great minor league teams. Pennants from the Cotton States League, Southeastern League, Texas League, Central League and Southern League have been raised and celebrated. We have also seen at least one very bad team, which is “celebrating” its 15th anniversary this year. Yet as dismal as the 2000 campaign was for the Jackson DiamondKats, the independent club did have some bright spots during its one-year run at Smith-Wills Stadium. Some recognition is due. It should be remembered that former Delta State star Casey Myrick was named the Texas-Louisiana League rookie of the year in 2000 after batting .329 with nine homers and 56 RBIs. Two D-Kats pitchers, Ryan Creek and Jeremy McClain, finished the season in the top 10 in the league in ERA. Creek, a onetime Jackson Generals ace, put up a 3.07 and went 5-5 (for a team that was 36 games under .500) before being injured. McClain, another DSU product, had a 3.27 ERA and went 7-9. William Carey College alumnus Perry Miley stole 38 bases, third-most in the TLL. And former big leaguer and ex-Jackson Mets outfielder Mark Carreon joined the team late in the year and hit .340. The D-Kats won their home opener, 5-4 against the Alexandria Aces, before an announced 2,389 (a bit of a stretch). The crowd included Mayor Harvey Johnson and ex-big leaguer Oil Can Boyd, a cousin of D-Kats outfielder Popeye Cole. Miley scored the winning run in the eighth inning, knocked in by Tupelo native Willie Gardner. Southern Miss product Danny Shupe made the lead stand up with a 1-2-3 ninth. Mark Davis, another Carey alum, got the win. The D-Kats didn’t win many more, finishing 38-74, a league record for losses. Former Ole Miss and MLB star Steve Dillard, a good guy, managed the club, which was heavy with Mississippians and largely overmatched against teams stacked with indy league veterans. The D-Kats were outscored by almost 200 runs and struck out a league-record 836 times. They endured two 10-game losing streaks. Home attendance was sparse, averaging under 700 a game. Alas, the D-Kats never got a chance at redemption. The franchise, owned by the league, folded before the 2001 season. The Jackson Mets and Generals, MLB-affiliated clubs, churned out stars at Smith-Wills for 25 years, from 1975-99, winning five Texas League pennants. The independent Senators arrived in 2002 and won a Central League crown in 2003. They ceased operations in 2006, one year after the Atlanta-affiliated Mississippi Braves arrived in Pearl, where they won a Southern League title in 2008 and are now playing their 11th season. While all those championship-stamped teams and many of the players they produced are regularly feted, the DiamondKats tend to be forgotten. Not today.

01 Aug

on the bump

Cody Reed, the former Horn Lake High and Northwest Mississippi Community College standout, was sharp in his Southern League debut on Friday, notching a win for Pensacola. Acquired by Cincinnati from Kansas City in the Johnny Cueto trade, left-hander Reed allowed five hits and one run over seven innings for the Blue Wahoos. He is now 8-7 with a 2.45 ERA for the year with three clubs over two levels. … Southern Miss product Scott Copeland has won three straight starts and four of five for Triple-A Buffalo and leads the International League with a 2.13 ERA. He has made multiple trips up to Toronto and back to Buffalo this season (see previous posts) with mixed results in his five MLB games (6.46 ERA). Still, it was a feel-good story when he made his big league debut at age 27 in his sixth pro season. … Ex-Mississippi State star Chris Stratton finally notched his first Triple-A win on July 27 for Sacramento in the San Francisco system and figures to make his next start on Sunday. Stratton, from Tupelo, is 1-3 in 10 starts despite a 3.02 ERA. He was the 20th overall pick in 2012 and has been rated a top prospect in the Giants’ system ever since. “Every year, I’ve learned something new,’’ he told milb.com. Though he isn’t on the Giants’ 40-man roster, Stratton certainly could get a call-up in September. … When right-hander Zack Bird might make his Mississippi Braves debut isn’t clear. The former Murrah star, acquired by Atlanta from the Los Angeles Dodgers in Thursday’s mega-deal, has been a starter most of his four-year minor league career but isn’t on the latest list of M-Braves probables for the next few days. The team returns to Trustmark Park in Pearl on Sunday. Bird was a Southern Miss signee before he became a rare Jackson Public Schools draftee in 2012, when the Dodgers took him in the ninth round. Bird’s career record is an ugly 16-35, including a 6-17 mark in 2014, and his ERA is pushing 5.00. But he has shown some stuff, including an upper 90s fastball. He struck out 110 batters in 118 2/3 innings in the Midwest League in 2014 and had 95 K’s in 89 innings in the California League this year. … Ole Miss alum Phil Irwin, who had been pitching in Korea, has signed a minor league deal with Texas. Irwin has made two big league appearances in seven pro seasons, one each in 2013 (Pittsburgh) and 2014 (the Rangers).