Monthly Archives: April 2016

24 Apr

around the horn

It’s a day for letting baseball just flow over you. … Rubber game today in Hattiesburg with the Conference USA lead at stake. Kirk McCarty (3-0, 3.51 ERA) for Southern Miss vs. Ricardo Salinas (6-1, 3.60) for Rice in what has been a pitching-dominated series at Taylor Park. … Mississippi State goes for a sweep at LSU. Reid Humphreys, the ex-Northwest Rankin High star, got an RBI and the save in Saturday’s 2-1 win. For the year, he’s hitting .328 with 15 doubles, four homers and 31 RBIs and he has five saves. … Ole Miss, going for a sweep against Auburn in Oxford, now has won 30 games for 19 straight seasons. Impressive. … Delta State left-hander Tre Hobbs beat Valdosta State in Cleveland on Saturday to improve to 11-1 with a 2.46 ERA and eight complete games. Nationally ranked in NCAA Division II, DSU is 32-13, 21-8 Gulf South. … There was a celebration in Itta Bena on Saturday. By Alabama State, which clinched the SWAC East with a 10-0 win over hapless Mississippi Valley State. ASU (17-0 in the league) won Friday’s opener 12-0. … William Carey University improved to 34-15 and 16-7 in the Southern States Athletic Conference by sweeping Brewton-Parker in Hattiesburg. The NAIA nationally ranked Crusaders are hitting .327 with 390 runs. … Millsaps’ season ended with a 13-11 loss to Birmingham-Southern in the Southern Athletic Association tournament. The Majors finished 20-21. … Belhaven lost its home finale to McMurry at Smith-Wills Stadium on Saturday, saying goodbye to 11 seniors and paying special tribute to Devin McCann, who died in a car accident just before the season began. … Mississippi College stopped an 11-game GSC losing streak with a 3-2 win against Lee in Clinton on Saturday. The Choctaws go for the series win today at Frierson Field. … Former Ole Miss star Chris Ellis, bucking for a call-up to the big leagues, threw six brilliant innings for the Mississippi Braves against Biloxi at Trustmark Park on Saturday. He got a no-decision in a game the M-Braves would ultimately lose but is 2-0 with a 1.16 ERA in four Double-A starts. He got a long look with Atlanta in spring training. … Ex-State standout Chad Girodo’s stay in MLB was short but sweet. He threw two scoreless innings in his debut for Toronto against Oakland on Friday but was shipped back to the minors on Saturday. … UM product Zack Cozart went 3-for-5 in Cincinnati’s 13-5 win over the Chicago Cubs on Saturday and is now batting .400 (20-for-50) on the year with a homer, five RBIs and 10 runs. … Anthony Alford, the former Mr. Baseball from Petal and a top-rated Toronto prospect, has not played since suffering a leg injury in his first game of the season at Class A Dunedin. The Blue Jays have been silent on his status.

22 Apr

together again

Mississippi Braves vs. Biloxi Shuckers. We want this to be a rivalry. Rivalries are good. They demand attention. Remember Jackson-Shreveport from the old Texas League days? The M-Braves and Shuckers meet for the first time in 2016 tonight at Trustmark Park. They split their 24 meetings in 2015, but, M-Braves fans should recall, the Shuckers clinched — and celebrated — the Southern League South first-half championship at the TeePee last June. So, there’s that. Biloxi comes in tonight leading the SL South at 11-3. The M-Braves are last at 5-10. The Shuckers again feature a bevy of top Milwaukee prospects, including No. 2 Brett Phillips, who is batting .311 with a homer and eight RBIs, and right-hander Adrian Houser, tonight’s starter, who is 0-1, 5.73 ERA. Biloxi has three of the SL’s top 10 hitters: Phillips, Victor Roache (.333) and Javier Betancourt (.314). The M-Braves have one: Ozzie Albies, who’s third at .350. Both teams pitch pretty well, ranking second (Biloxi) and fourth in the league in ERA. Lucas Sims, one of several pitching prospects on the M-Braves’ roster, gets the start in Game 1; he is 0-2, 1.84. P.S. Big league chew: Ex-Ole Miss star and veteran big leaguer Alex Presley got a hit in his Milwaukee debut on Thursday. … Southwest Mississippi Community College alum Jarrod Dyson is 3-for-9 with two steals since Kansas City activated him from the disabled list. … Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton has a thumb injury (from last week’s home run-robbing catch) that is keeping him out of the Cincinnati lineup. … Former Pillow Academy standout Louis Coleman has been placed on the bereavement list by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

21 Apr

check and check

It had been a while since Kendall Graveman last posted a win. It had been a whole lot longer since he took a bat to home plate. The former Mississippi State standout now with the Oakland A’s did both at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night. Graveman beat New York for his first win since last July 4 – a span of 10 starts – and, because the A’s had to put their DH on the field, he batted for the first time since he was in high school in Alabama, eight years ago. He struck out against Nathan Eovaldi. What Graveman did on the bump made that AB totally irrelevant. The right-hander went 6 1/3 innings, allowing just three hits and a run with a career-best eight strikeouts in the 5-2 victory. Graveman is 1-1 with a 2.04 ERA in three starts for the A’s. Former Ole Miss star Chris Coghlan drove in the game-tying run, scored the go-ahead run and made a big defensive play at third base in the seventh inning. P.S. Also notching a big win on Wednesday was Ole Miss alum Drew Pomeranz, who struck out a career-high 10 in San Diego’s 8-2 decision against Pittsburgh. Lefty Pomeranz, 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA in his first season with the Padres, yielded four hits and an unearned run in 6 2/3 innings. … So far, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ idea of trying Jordan Schafer as a pitcher is working just fine. The former Mississippi Braves and big league outfielder, a left-hander, has a 0.00 ERA and six strikeouts over seven innings for Double-A Tulsa. He is a .228 career big league hitter.

20 Apr

campus notes

The Jones County Junior College express just keeps rolling on. The Bobcats, ranked fourth in the nation, beat Holmes Community College in Goodman 15-13 and 5-4 on Tuesday, improving to 18-2 in the MACJC and 35-3 overall under new coach Chris Kirtland. Over just its last 11 games, JCJC has won by scores of 11-1, 12-2, 13-3, 9-1, 13-3, 14-3, 20-1 and 8-3 before the sweep of Holmes. … Mississippi Gulf Coast CC’s Brian Lane was named MACJC player of the week after batting .571 with a homer and six RBIs and extending a hitting streak to 11 games in four contests last week. The Delta State signee is batting .411 on the year with 29 RBIs. … In Cleveland on Tuesday, DSU’s Will Robertson, having a monster season, went 4-for-6 with two doubles and a homer in a sweep of Ouachita Baptist. Robertson’s 26th double broke the school record held by, among others, Statesmen coach Mike Kinnison. Robertson, a redshirt senior from Falkner, is batting .451 with six homers and 59 RBIs for the 30-13 Statesmen, ranked 15th in NCAA Division II. … Logan Ferrell, Caleb Upton and Hunter Bolin combined for 10 hits as Mississippi College beat Belhaven University 13-9 on Tuesday at Smith-Wills Stadium in a game between Maloney Trophy Series combatants. MC went 2-0 against BU this season and beat Millsaps in their only meeting. … Millsaps (19-19), which wound up fourth in the Southern Athletic Association regular season, will play No. 5 seed Berry in the first round of tournament play on Friday at Birmingham-Southern. BSC, the regular season champ, opens with Sewanee in one of the two four-team, double-elimination pods. The winners from the two pods meet in a best-of-3 series for the SAA championship. … Here’s an interesting stat on Jackson State’s Jesus Santana. Of his 33 hits, 10 have left the park; he also has eight doubles. The Tigers (21-17) host the University of New Orleans tonight at Braddy Field. … Tate Blackman got a hit for Ole Miss on Tuesday, extending his streak of reaching base to 22 of 23 games as the Rebels whipped Memphis 7-0 at AutoZone Park. The nationally ranked Rebels (27-10) also blasted three homers in the minor league ballpark. … Southern Miss, also ranked in some polls, lost at Tulane 12-0 on Tuesday, perhaps looking ahead to the huge series against Rice this weekend in Hattiesburg. The Golden Eagles (27-11) and Owls are tied for first in C-USA at 12-3. … Mississippi State (24-12-1) takes its various national rankings to Biloxi tonight to play Louisiana-Monroe at MGM Park. ULM’s roster includes seven Mississippi juco products, among them ex-Hinds CC star Keller Bradford, son of former big leaguer Chad. Keller has a 2.78 ERA in 23 relief appearances for the Warhawks.

18 Apr

on this date

On this date 70 years ago, Clay Hopper, a veteran minor league skipper from Greenwood, managed his first game with the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top farm team. Playing at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, N.J., the Royals won 14-1, taking the first step toward winning the International League pennant. Of course, Hopper’s Royals debut was overshadowed more than a little bit by another: Jackie Robinson’s. In his first game in so-called organized baseball, Robinson went 4-for-5 with a three-run homer, four runs and two steals. He would go on to win the IL’s Most Valuable Player award and then break the color barrier in the major leagues in 1947. Hopper, who played at Mississippi A&M (State) under Dudy Noble, had asked in spring training of 1946 that Robinson not be assigned to his Montreal club but was overruled. From most accounts, Hopper and Robinson got along fine. Hopper won the IL manager of the year award and was named minor league manager of the year by The Sporting News following that ’46 campaign. He managed another 10 years in the minors and made the IL’s Hall of Fame in 2009, some 33 years after his death. P.S. The Kansas City Royals reportedly are considering keeping outfielder Jarrod Dyson in the minors a while longer as he rehabs from an oblique strain suffered in his first at-bat of spring training. The McComb native and former Southwest Mississippi Community College star is batting .250 with three steals and six runs in six games at Triple-A Omaha.

18 Apr

blue monday

That noise you just heard was the whistling sound of Mississippi’s Big 3 schools falling in the new Baseball America poll. Mississippi State, swept at home – during Super Bulldog Weekend — by Texas A&M, dropped from No. 2 to seventh. Ole Miss, which lost two of three at Alabama (plus a midweek game to Southern Miss), went from eighth to 15th. And USM, which lost two of three at Alabama-Birmingham, tumbled out of the poll from No. 25. There is a lot of baseball left, as they say, but this might be a tough weekend to recover from on all fronts. State (24-12-1, 8-7 SEC) gave up 30 runs to the Aggies, who might have one of the best teams in the country. Ole Miss (26-10, 7-8 SEC) scored just six runs against the Crimson Tide. USM (27-10, 12-3 C-USA) squandered leads in losing the first two games against a sub-.500 Blazers team. Of course, there were bright spots. For State, freshman Jake Mangum, helping fill in for injured Jacob Robson, went 7-for-15. Ole Miss got excellent starts from Brady Bramlett and David Parkinson, plus a 5-for-12 effort from freshman Ryan Olenek. For USM, Kirk McCarty threw a three-hit shutout in Game 3 on Sunday, and the Golden Eagles hit four homers to lift their season total to 44. … Keep an ear out.

17 Apr

searching …

Trustmark Park is not a great place to find your offense, but the Mississippi Braves open a 10-game homestand tonight desperately searching. The M-Braves, off to a 2-8 start, are batting .218 and have scored just 27 runs, ninth in the 10-team Southern League. Nine of those runs came in one game, a win at Montgomery on Friday. Maybe that was a sign that a breakout is imminent. There are only 10 position players among the top 30 prospects (as rated by mlb.com) in Atlanta’s refurbished minor league system, and three of them are playing for the M-Braves. No. 3 Ozzie Albies is off to a fine start, batting .310. No. 21 Dustin Peterson also has played well, hitting .308 with a homer (in Friday’s game) and seven RBIs. No. 24 Johan Camargo, like Albies and Peterson, playing his first Double-A season, has scuffled (.179). The pitching depth in the Braves’ system is impressive, but they’re going to have to produce some hitters, too. There are less-heralded players on the M-Braves’ roster who could be part of the rebuild in Atlanta but who need to get it going. First baseman Jacob Schrader, who hit .268 and belted 15 homers at Class A Carolina in 2015, has hit one bomb this year (Friday in Montgomery) and is batting just .214. Third baseman Carlos Franco, who had 11 homers at Carolina last year, is still looking for his first in Mississippi and is hitting .125. Infielder Emerson Landoni, a .297 hitter for the M-Braves a year ago, is at .118. Outfielder Dian Toscano, the 27-year-old Cuban signee, is 1-for-8 in his two games since being activated, though the one hit was a two-run triple in that Friday game at Montgomery. He’s one to watch. Outfielder Connor Lien had good numbers at Carolina in 2015 (.285, nine homers, 32 steals) but is currently on the disabled list. He could boost the attack, too, whenever he returns. The M-Braves’ pitching staff, armed with prospects, has a 3.19 ERA. If they could only get them some runs. P.S. On Chattanooga’s roster is former Ole Miss star Stuart Turner, a catcher who is batting .364, ranking among the SL leaders. … Mississippi State product Tyler Moore is hitting .282 with a home run and seven RBIs in eight games at Triple-A Gwinnett. Former M-Braves third baseman Rio Ruiz is hitting .314 for the G-Braves; he hit .229 in Pearl last season. … Dansby Swanson, the Braves’ No. 1 prospect, is killing it at Carolina, hitting .350 in 10 games for the high-A club.

15 Apr

on the run

Funny, isn’t it, that leading scorers aren’t talked about in baseball the way they are in basketball, hockey or even football. Today, we fix that. Runs are the focus in previewing a weekend that’s practically overrun with big series. The leading scorer in the state among college players is Delta State’s Brandon Cummins, who has touched home plate 50 times in 38 games. The Drew native will lead the Statesmen into a key series in Cleveland this weekend, when DSU and West Florida, Gulf South Conference co-leaders at 18-6, meet at Ferriss Field. There’s another big series in Starkville, where Jacob Robson, with his 32 runs, will lead Mississippi State against Texas A&M in a battle of highly ranked SEC clubs. Nationally ranked Southern Miss — and leading scorer Dylan Burdeaux (34 runs) — takes its 11-1 C-USA record to Alabama-Birmingham. Will Golsan, who has 28 runs, leads nationally ranked Ole Miss (just 6-6 in the SEC) against Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Jackson State will count on a big weekend from leading scorer Jesus Santana (36 runs) when it plays a four-game SWAC set against Alcorn State, which is led by Wallace Rios (22 runs). Game 1 of the series is tonight at Biloxi’s MGM Park, the other three are at JSU’s Braddy Field. Both teams are 6-6 in the SWAC East. Tyler Richardson has scored 42 runs for NAIA nationally ranked William Carey, which travels to Bethel in Tennessee aiming to move up in the Southern States Athletic Conference standings. Millsaps, with Isaac Glenn (25 runs) fronting its charge, ends its regular season with a trip to Hendrix in Arkansas. The Majors are 17-18 and 10-8 in the Southern Athletic Association, which starts its postseason next week.

14 Apr

poll positions

Finally, there is a new NJCAA Division II poll. Fittingly, Mississippi jucos, three of them, populate the top 20. Jones County Junior College, which has distanced itself from the field in the MACJC standings, is No. 4 in the national poll, the first one released since before the season began. JCJC is 33-3 and 16-2 after sweeping Pearl River Community College 20-1 and 8-3 on Wednesday, the day the poll came out. The Bobcats are one of the highest scoring teams in the country, led by Mason Irby, who leads the state with a .472 average and 45 RBIs. With seven homers, Irby trails only teammate Erick Hoard and PRCC’s Zack Clark, who have 11. Tanner Huddleston, a .425 hitter for JCJC, has driven in 44 runs and Hoard 42. The Bobcats’ Clint Sasser leads the state and ranks No. 2 nationally with 34 steals. Oh, and ace Mason Strickland is 6-0 with a 2.06 ERA. Meridian CC is ranked No. 7 and East Central is No. 20. They are in a pack of four schools sitting in a virtual tie for second place in the MACJC standings. The Eagles (27-7, 12-6) and Warriors (25-13, 13-7) split a twinbill in Decatur on Tuesday; Will Kennedy’s bases-clearing triple sparked the Warriors’ Game 2 win after they had blown a ninth-inning lead in the opener. Northwest, also 12-6 in the league, got some poll votes. The Rangers (20-12) had an eight-game win streak stopped by Dyersburg (Tenn.) State on Tuesday. Hinds, which was ranked No. 9 in the NJCAA preseason poll, started slowly but has picked it up of late. The Eagles (20-14, 12-6) swept Copian-Lincoln on Tuesday — with the aid of 11 errors. If the postseason started today, Northeast, Gulf Coast and Holmes would join Jones and the four second-place teams in the chase. But certainly, much could change between now and the start of the best-of-3 round on May 6.

13 Apr

on the march

The number William Carey University got on Tuesday was 22. The Crusaders likely would have preferred a 30. On the same day it moved back into the NAIA national rankings at No. 22, Carey failed in a bid for its 30th win, losing to LSU-Alexandria at Wheeler Field in Hattiesburg. That setback aside, Bobby Halford’s Crusaders are a team on the march. They are 29-14 with nine wins in their last 12 games, including taking best-of-3 series from a pair of top 10 teams. Carey is 11-6 in the Southern States Athletic Conference heading into a series this weekend at Bethel (21-14, 7-8). Tyler Richardson and Adrian Brown have won the last two SSAC player of the week honors. Richardson is batting .329 and leading the team in homers (five), RBIs (38) and runs (42). McComb native Brown, son of the ex-big leaguer of the same name, is at .385 with 33 RBIs and 20 steals. Tyler Odom of Hattiesburg leads the team in hitting with a .417 average, Magee’s Stevie Hubbard is at .386, Cody Christian at .338 and Tyler James has 26 steals. Carey has outscored its opponents 339-170, getting strong pitching from Devin Smith (6-0, 2.25 ERA), Taylorsville’s Mason Woodrow (4-1, 3.46) and J.D. Little (5-1, 4.13). Carey has nine league games left as it jockeys for SSAC Tournament position. The Crusaders are fifth in the standings but have a 4-2 mark against the first- and second-place clubs, powerhouses Faulkner and Auburn-Montgomery. An NAIA postseason bid is well within the Crusaders’ grasp.