Monthly Archives: July 2017

Big hits have been scarce for Tim Anderson this season. He got one Saturday that would qualify. The ex-East Central Community College standout belted a 444-foot home run in the ninth inning – he put one on the board, yes — that broke a tie and lifted the Chicago White Sox to a 5-4 win at Colorado. Anderson’s ninth homer of the season – and second in as many games – came against Rockies closer Greg Holland, who tried to throw a 1-2 fastball past him. “I was onto the heater,” Anderson told The Associated Press. Anderson hit .283 with nine homers in 99 games as a rookie in 2016 and was rewarded with a big contract. He has struggled much of this year, batting .243 (.266 on-base percentage). With 19 errors in 77 games, his defense at shortstop is also a work in progress. … Former Taylorsville High star Billy Hamilton retook the MLB stolen base lead by swiping three bags – that’s 37 on the year — in Cincinnati’s 7-0 win at Arizona. It was the kind of game the Reds would love to seem more of from Hamilton: two hits, two walks, a run and an RBI. … Southwest Mississippi CC alum Jarrod Dyson hit his fifth homer of the year for Seattle in a loss at Oakland; he had seven in seven years with Kansas City. … Mississippi Braves products Julio Teheran and Akeel Morris helped Atlanta shut out Washington for the first time this season. Teheran (7-6) went seven innings and Morris, making his Atlanta debut, worked the ninth in the Braves’ 13-0 win. Morris made one appearance with the New York Mets in 2015. … Down in the minors, ex-Mississippi State star Brent Rooker mashed his fifth homer in 14 pro games at rookie-level Elizabethton in Minnesota’s system. Rooker, who hit 23 homers in 67 games at State this year, is batting .291 with nine RBIs for the E-Twins.

Draw a bead on Target Field. Baltimore vs. Minnesota on a Friday night, a pair of Mississippians batting leadoff for their respective clubs. What happened was sort of a microcosm of the season for both the Orioles and the Twins. Jackson native Seth Smith led off the game with a home run for the O’s, helping them build a 6-0 lead. It didn’t hold up. Fulton’s Brian Dozier went 2-for-5 with a triple, a run and an RBI as the Twins rallied for a 9-6 victory. Dozier capped Minnesota’s scoring with a single in the eighth that somehow scored Byron Buxton from first base. It was the fifth straight loss for the Orioles (40-46), who now trail Boston by 9.5 games in the American League East after leading the division not so long ago. Buck Showalter, the ex-Mississippi State star, has seen his O’s lose 30 of 45 road games. Ole Miss alum Smith, in his first season in Baltimore, is batting .250 with a .319 on-base average, nine homers and 19 RBIs. The O’s, who had visions of a playoff berth this year, were probably expecting something better when they traded for Smith, though their collapse can hardly be pinned on him. The Twins, not considered a contender this year, continue to hang around in the AL Central, which they led not so long ago. At 45-41, they are just 1.5 games back of first-place Cleveland. Southern Miss product Dozier, coming off a monster 2016, hasn’t been as scary this year but has contributed in fits and spurts, batting .250 with 13 homers, 40 RBIs and 10 stolen bases. The scrappy Twins typically follow the lead of their scrappy second baseman.

Baseball has produced some memorable fireworks on the field on the Fourth of July, with perhaps the most unforgettable of those games occurring in Atlanta’s old Fulton County Stadium in 1985. On a rainy night in Georgia, the Braves and New York Mets played 19 innings over 6 hours, 10 minutes (well into July 5) with the Mets finally winning 16-13. Six former Jackson Mets played in that game, including Darryl Strawberry and Lenny Dykstra, who were among the 11 players to get three or more hits in a 46-hit affair. Keith Hernandez hit for the cycle for the Mets and Atlanta’s Terry Harper got five knocks, but the most famous hit of that game was Braves pitcher Rick Camp’s pinch-hit home run – the only bomb of his career – in the bottom of the 18th. … Another of the great July 4 shows occurred at Fenway Park in 1977, when the Boston Red Sox hit eight home runs in a 9-6 victory against Toronto. Greenville native George Scott hit two of them. … Also on July 4, in 2006, former Jackson Generals star Billy Wagner, pitching for the Mets, notched his 300th save. … Unable to wait a day to blast off, Harrison Central High product Bobby Bradley homered, tripled and doubled – alas, no single – for Double-A Akron on Monday. The Cleveland Indians prospect is batting .267 with 15 homers and 56 RBIs. … The Mississippi Braves had a big crowd (an announced 6,500-plus) and a big fireworks show at Trustmark Park on Monday night but produced another dud on the field, falling to Chattanooga 4-2 to complete an 0-6 homestand. The M-Braves, contenders in the first half in the Southern League South, are off to a 3-8 start in the second. … Biloxi Shuckers alum Orlando Arcia, who put on a baserunning show on Monday, scoring from first on an infield hit, is emerging as a star in Milwaukee. He is batting .295 with eight homers, 28 RBIs and 33 runs for the first-place Brewers. … Former Ole Miss star Lance Lynn will be on the bump today for St. Louis against Miami looking to iron out some wrinkles against a team he has never lost to. Lynn (6-5, 3.90 ERA) has yielded 17 runs in his last three starts, going 1-2 in that stretch as his ERA jumped by more than a run. … Mississippi State alum Tyler Moore hasn’t seen the field much for the Marlins since Justin Bour came off the disabled list, getting just 11 at-bats since June 19. Moore got a two-run pinch single on Monday in a 14-6 loss at St. Louis and is batting .280 with six homers and 21 RBIs in 45 games. Maybe he should play more … .

While Mookie Betts was commanding all the attention with his record-tying eight-RBI performance on Sunday, Drew Pomeranz notched his eighth win with another in a string of strong outings. Former Ole Miss star Pomeranz went six innings in Boston’s 15-1 win at Toronto’s launching pad, the Rogers Centre, and yielded just five hits and the lone Blue Jays run. Pomeranz, who has had some hiccups this season, his second with Boston, has allowed just four earned runs in his last four starts and is now 8-4 with a 3.64 ERA for the first-place Red Sox. Oh yeah: Betts tied an MLB record and set a club mark with eight RBIs from the leadoff spot. The last Boston player to get seven as a leadoff man was Vicksburg native Ellis Burks, who did it in 1987, according to MLB Network. P.S. Kudos to McComb native Corey Dickerson and Ole Miss alum Zack Cozart on being selected to start in the All-Star Game. Mississippi has been represented in the Midsummer Classic three straight years now: Pomeranz made it last year while with San Diego, and ex-Southern Miss standout Brian Dozier was picked in 2015.

Tyreque Reed put up some nice numbers in the Arizona League on Saturday: Two hits, three RBIs and four runs in the rookie-level Rangers’ 25-3 mauling of the Padres. Reed, a juco All-American at Itawamba Community College this year, is batting .313 with seven RBIs and seven runs in four games in pro ball. He was an eighth-round pick by Texas last month. Ex-Mississippi State All-American Brent Rooker, the first player from the state drafted this year (35th overall), smacked his third homer in seven games for Minnesota’s Appalachian League club. Rooker is hitting .267 with five RBIs. Southern Miss alum Taylor Braley (sixth round, Miami) has signed but has yet to debut, while fellow Golden Eagles product Kirk McCarty (seventh round, Cleveland) has made one appearance in the New York-Penn League, throwing two scoreless innings. MSU product Ryan Gridley (11th round, Oakland) got his first two pro hits on Saturday in the NYPL. Ex-Ole Miss star Tate Blackman (13th round, Chicago White Sox) is at .206 with three RBIs and six runs in 11 games in the Pioneer League. Jackson State alum Bryce Brown (15th round, Tampa Bay), the only player drafted from a state SWAC school, is batting .240 in eight games in the Appy League. Dylan Burdeaux (20th round out of USM) and Colby Bortles (22nd round out of Ole Miss) have hit back-to-back in a couple of games for Detroit’s NYPL team (Connecticut). Bortles is at .286 in four games, Burdeaux .214. P.S. Braxton Lee has made a rather smooth adjustment to his new organization and team. The former Picayune High, Pearl River CC and Ole Miss standout is 9-for-16 in four games for Jacksonville in the Double-A Southern League. Traded from Tampa Bay to Miami in the Adeiny Hechavarria deal, Lee was batting .335 with two homers and 21 RBIs for Montgomery and was an SL All-Star Game selection. … Nice feature on USM’s Matt Wallner in the latest issue of Baseball America, which chose him as its national freshman of the year. State’s Riley Self was a second-team freshman All-America choice by BA.

On this date in 2009, Jonathan Papelbon became the Boston Red Sox’s all-time saves leader, closing out a 6-5, extra-inning win against Baltimore for No. 133. The ex-Mississippi State ace would go on to save 235 more games in a career that may have ended on Aug. 13, 2016. Papelbon was released on that date after a tumultuous couple of seasons with Washington. Though there were reports of interest from other teams at the time, he never signed on anywhere, nor has he announced his retirement. He is now 36 years old. Papelbon, also the Philadelphia Phillies’ all-time saves leader, posted a 2.44 ERA over his 689 MLB appearances, all but three as a reliever. His 368 saves ranks ninth all-time. He made six All-Star Games and won a ring in 2007 with the Red Sox. Papelbon’s trademark intensity, on and off the mound, sometimes went over the top and created problems. But when he was good – see 2006-09 with the Red Sox — he was very good. P.S. Former Mississippi Braves standout Alex Wood moved to 9-0 and cut his ERA to 1.83 in leading the Los Angeles Dodgers past San Diego 10-4 on Friday night. Wood yielded two hits and one run and recorded eight strikeouts in six innings. Some perspective here: The great Fernando Valenzuela started 8-0 in his historic 1981 season — but lost in his next outing.