The day after getting his first big league knock, former Petal High star Anthony Alford has landed on the disabled list with a fractured hamate bone in his left wrist. Reports say Alford could be out six weeks. One of Toronto’s highest-rated prospects, Alford was batting .325 with three homers, 11 RBIs and nine steals in his Double-A debut when he was called up last week. He is 1-for-8 for the Blue Jays. The 22-year-old outfielder has been snakebit with injury issues the last two seasons.
By the numbers and under the circumstances, it was Lance Lynn’s best start of the season and among the best in his seven-year big league career. Alas, the Ole Miss product got a no-decision and his team, the St. Louis Cardinals, took a loss, 2-1 in 13 innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night. Lynn went up against Clayton Kershaw in a battle of aces at Dodger Stadium and certainly held his own. In eight innings – 123 pitches – Lynn allowed just two hits and one run – a homer by Yasmani Grandal in the first inning – while striking out 10. Kershaw went nine, also struck out 10 and yielded just three hits. But a wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth cost him a run and sent the game into extra innings. “(Y)ou knew when we headed into this, I figured it was going to be a well-pitched game on both sides,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny told The Associated Press. “It was just going to be who got that big hit, and it was them.” Specifically, that would be a Logan Forsythe RBI double in the 13th. Lynn, a pending free agent who missed 2016 after Tommy John surgery, is 4-2 with a 2.53 ERA and 50 punchouts in 53 1/3 innings. P.S. Mark it down: Former Petal High star Anthony Alford got his first MLB hit on Tuesday, a pinch double in the seventh inning for Toronto against Milwaukee’s Rob Scahill.
Mississippi is having a heck of a year on the college diamonds, and it ain’t over yet. Southern Miss’ Dylan Burdeaux won Conference USA player of the year honors today, giving the state four such honorees. Burdeaux joins Mississippi State’s Brent Rooker (SEC), Delta State’s Zack Shannon (Gulf South) and William Carey’s James Land (SSAC) as top dogs in their league. (Rooker beat out Burdeaux and Shannon for the Ferriss Trophy that goes to the state’s best player.) For what it’s worth, Jackson State’s Bryce Brown had a pretty good case for SWAC POY, and Itawamba Community College’s Tyreque Reed (a State commit) led NJCAA Division II in hitting with an amazing .504 average. DSU, Carey and Hinds CC are all bound for the World Series at their respective levels. The NCAA Division I schools are only just beginning their quest for Omaha, with USM looking like it might have a realistic shot.
Collegiate Baseball’s preseason Top 40 poll for NCAA Division II schools did not include Delta State. The Statesmen were in the Also Receiving Votes category. O ye of little faith. DSU is one of just eight teams still standing in Division II, off to the College World Series in Grand Prairie, Texas. The Statesmen, ranked as high as No. 2 in the nation, are 44-11 with Gulf South Conference regular season and tournament titles and a South Region championship on their ledger. Tradition never slumps, as they like to say up in Cleveland, and the Green and White certainly has that. The 6-4 win over West Alabama on Monday at Ferriss Field gave the program its 12th regional title, its sixth in 21 years under coach Mike Kinnison, who is four wins shy of 900. One of those wins delivered a national championship in 2004. You want tradition? Kinnison was a second-team All-America shortstop at DSU under the great Boo Ferriss and led the 1978 team to the College World Series. Lowered expectations — in some circles, at least – for 2017 were based on the heavy personnel losses from last year’s team, which also made the regional. But Kinnison rebuilt the roster with some masterful recruiting, bringing in juco transfers like GSC and South Region player of the year Zack Shannon, Seth Birdsong, Jason Popovich, Emil Ellis, Justin Nussbaum and Brian Lane plus University of Houston transfer Clay Casey, a former DeSoto Central High star. Detractors might point out that, for all those CSW trips, DSU has won only the one national title. But, hey, it’s one of only two by any four-year school from the Magnolia State.
It’s certainly good to see Dansby Swanson heating up in Atlanta. The rookie shortstop is batting .353 with a pair of homers and nine RBIs over his last 10 games. He’s up to .207, four, 17 for the season. There really aren’t a lot of reasons to watch the scuffling Braves. Swanson — among the scant few Mississippi Braves alums now playing for Atlanta — is one. While so many current Braves are just aging placeholders, Swanson is part of a future that holds great promise. Baseball America’s projected 2020 lineup for Atlanta includes Swanson and fellow former M-Braves Freddie Freeman (of course), Julio Teheran, Ozzie Albies, Dustin Peterson, Sean Newcomb and Patrick Weigel, plus current M-Braves Ronald Acuna, Kolby Allard and Mike Soroka. Austin Riley, the DeSoto Central High product now playing in high Class A, is also in that group. Others who could contend for roles by 2020 are current M-Braves Travis Demeritte, Max Fried and Luiz Gohara and Ian Anderson, Kevin Maitan and Cristian Pache, highly touted prospects in the low minors. Atlanta’s farm system is truly stacked. Some of this new wave of Braves will arrive later this year or next. If all goes according to the apparent master plan, the Braves will be something to see again soon. P.S. Peterson, a Southern League MVP candidate last year after batting .282 with 12 homers and 88 RBIs in Pearl, is playing again at Triple-A Gwinnett. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound outfielder suffered a hand injury while in spring training with the big club.
Mitch Moreland, one of several Boston hitters caught in a power drought, is showing signs of breaking out. The former Mississippi State star from Amory homered for the third straight game on Sunday in a 12-3 Red Sox win at Oakland. He now has five on the year. The Red Sox, trying to keep pace with Baltimore and New York in the American League East, rank 29th in the big leagues with 38 homers. … Corey Dickerson, generating a lot of All-Star buzz these days, got two more hits for Tampa Bay on Sunday, boosting his MLB-leading hit total to 59. The Meridian Community College product is batting .347 (ninth in the big leagues) and slugging .635 (eighth). He has 11 homers, five in his last 10 games. … Former Ole Miss star Zack Cozart is hitting .351 (fourth in MLB) for Cincinnati. He didn’t play Sunday (sore wrist) as the tumbling Reds lost for the eighth time in nine games. … East Central CC alum Tim Anderson is 12-for-26 with three homers in six games since returning from a trip home to Birmingham for the funeral of a close friend. Anderson, in an early season slump, is now hitting .264 with five bombs and 11 RBIs for the Chicago White Sox. … Ex-Petal High standout Anthony Alford took an 0-for-3 on Sunday and is still looking for his first big league hit since last week’s call-up by Toronto. … Baltimore’s Adam Jones hit his 124th homer at Camden Yards on Sunday, equaling ex-State star Rafael Palmeiro for the most in the Orioles’ home park.
Hinds Community College, which has had a knack for getting on a roll this season, is on another. This latest one will carry the Eagles to the NJCAA Division II World Series. Hinds won its sixth straight postseason game on Saturday, beating No. 1-ranked Jones County JC 8-7 in Ellisville for the Region 23 championship. Freshman Will Pierce of Vicksburg knocked in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning of a classic title fight. Hinds, national runner-up in 2014, will make its sixth trip to the juco World Series. Sam Temple’s Eagles started this season 2-4 but then ripped off an eight-game win streak. After a few hiccups early in MACJC play, including two blowout losses to Jones, the Eagles won 13 of 15. They wobbled a bit at season’s end and finished 17-11 in the conference, drawing a best-of-3 playoff matchup against East Mississippi. They swept the Lions to make the Region 23 Tournament, where they faced No. 2-ranked LSU-Eunice in the first round. No worries. Hinds won 6-2, then bowled over Pearl River twice to reach the championship round against Jones. The defending national champion Bobcats had lost just three times all year and only once at home, to Pearl River in the first round of the regional. But the Bobcats could not slow Hinds’ roll. Next stop: Enid, Okla. P.S. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, Delta State rode the brilliant pitching of Tre Hobbs and Zach Osbon to a 4-1 win over Nova Southeastern, clinching a berth in the NCAA Division II South Region championship round on Monday. Hobbs, a left-hander from Greenville and Mississippi Delta CC, hasn’t had a great senior year after a dominant junior season that saw him go 13-2 and earn all kinds of honors. But he answered the call on Saturday, allowing just four hits over eight innings. Osbon, a lockdown closer all year, fanned the side in the ninth for the save. DSU is 43-11 and knocking on the door of another D-II World Series trip, which would be the fifth under coach Mike Kinnison.
Chris Ellis, who this time a year ago looked like a rising star in Atlanta’s system, has been bumped to the bullpen at Memphis, St. Louis’ Triple-A club. Former Ole Miss star Ellis, traded by the Braves to the Cardinals in the Jaime Garcia deal, was 1-3 with a 7.77 ERA in five starts for the Redbirds. Three straight scoreless relief outings have trimmed that figure to 6.98. In 29 2/3 innings, he has 28 strikeouts and 14 walks. After going 8-2, 2.75 for the Double-A Mississippi Braves last spring, Ellis was promoted to Triple-A Gwinnett and hit a wall. Plagued by control problems, the 6-foot-5 right-hander went 5-7, 6.52. He also struggled in the Arizona Fall League. Drafted out of Oxford by the Los Angeles Angels in the third round in 2014, Ellis was a top 10 prospect when Atlanta got him in the Andrelton Simmons deal. He is currently No. 28 on St. Louis’ chart. The good news: At age 24, Ellis still has time to turn things around.
A high school pitcher in New Hampshire, Brennen Oxford, has gotten some attention from MLB Network and mlb.com, among other media outlets, for throwing a fourth consecutive no-hitter. Impressive, yes, but still short of the record of six straight, which was set originally by Chris “No-No” Taranto of old Notre Dame High in Biloxi in 1961. Taranto threw a reported nine no-hitters all told in ’61 while leading his team to a state championship. Taranto’s consecutive no-no’s record was tied in 1989 by Tom Engle of Ohio.
So much to keep up with on an action-packed Friday … . Start in San Antonio, where sizzling Southern Miss hit nine home runs and scored 30 times to sweep a doubleheader from Texas-San Antonio. The Golden Eagles are 44-12 with 14 straight wins headed into the Conference USA Tournament, which will be played at MGM Park in Biloxi next week. … Mississippi State and Ole Miss suffered crushing defeats. The Bulldogs, whose pitching issues are beginning to cost them, fell to LSU 11-5 and then had to watch the Tigers celebrate an SEC West championship at Dudy Noble Field. Ole Miss fell to Auburn 9-1, the seventh loss in nine games for the Rebels, whose NCAA Tournament hopes are fading. SEC Network analyst Gabe Gross said it’s “panic button time” for the Rebels. … Jackson State’s tremendous season is very likely over. The Tigers were eliminated by Texas Southern in the SWAC Tournament, going down 11-2. JSU apparently ran out of pitching in its fourth tourney game, though it’s worth noting that the Tigers’ vaunted attack managed just four hits. Even at 38-17-1, it’s highly unlikely JSU will get an at-large NCAA bid. … Delta State opened NCAA Division II South Region play with a 9-7 win over Florida Southern at Ferriss Field in Cleveland. Seth Birdsong had a rare rough start for DSU, but home runs from Zack Shannon, Emil Ellis and Brian Lane fueled the victory. … In the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament in Ellisville, it’ll be top-ranked Jones County Junior College against Hinds Community College for the championship and a berth in the Division II World Series. Hinds, 3-0 in the tournament, pounded Pearl River 11-3, while Jones took down No. 2-ranked LSU-Eunice 10-2. Erick Hoard hit a grand slam, Fred Franklin added another homer and Mason Strickland threw a complete game for the Bobcats; all three are USM signees, by the way. Jones, the defending national champion, will have to beat Hinds twice to make a return trip to Enid, Okla. … In MLB, former Petal High star Anthony Alford went 0-for-2 in his big league debut for Toronto. He also lost track of the outs after catching a fly ball early in the game – no harm done – but later redeemed himself with a nice catch against the wall in Baltimore. And Mitch Moreland hit his fourth homer of the year for Boston, going yard against fellow Mississippi State alum Kendall Graveman of Oakland. The A’s would win the game 3-2. … Take a deep breath. There’s more to come today.