March 2018 - Page 4 of 4 - All Mississippi Baseball

06 Mar

bunt!

Surely you’ve seen it: Billy Hamilton made another highlight-reel catch on Monday, robbing Shohei Ohtani of extra bases in a Cactus League game. Hamilton’s defense is Gold Glove-caliber – on that we can all agree. It’s that other phase of the game – offense – where the Taylorsville native has been lacking. He would seem to be the type of player – that is, small and really fast — who could benefit from bunting for a hit. Yes, he’s a base-stealing fool. But he has a career on-base percentage in MLB of .298, which is not good, especially for a leadoff batter, which is what Cincinnati wants him to be. According to research published by espn.com, Hamilton, now entering his fifth season with the Reds, is bunting less than ever and not doing it very well. He had four bunt hits in 2017 on 19 attempts. That’s down from career-highs of 15 and 44 in 2014. The 160-pound Hamilton had as many homers as bunt hits last season. And he struck out 133 times in 582 at-bats. When he gets on base, he scores quite often – 44 percent of the time in 2017, according to FanGraphs. Seems he just hasn’t been taking full advantage of his strongest tool – speed – and that’s very puzzling. Hamilton reportedly is working on his bunting this spring in Arizona, though we’ve heard that before. He has been out of sync at the plate generally, going hitless in his first 14 at-bats over seven games. He popped up, struck out and walked (then was caught stealing) on Monday.

05 Mar

bombs away

The long ball is all the rage in the MACJC this season. Brandon Parker of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College leads the nation’s Division II jucos with 10 home runs, and four other state players rank among the top seven. Parker, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound freshman out of West Harrison High, belted No. 10 on Saturday against Baton Rouge CC at MGM Park in Biloxi. He is batting .500 with 29 RBIs (tied for the national lead) for the 13-1 Bulldogs. Northwest’s Brant Blaylock has six bombs in his last seven games and seven on the year in 10 games. Gulf Coast’s Dylan Menhennett and East Mississippi’s Anthony Hickman have hit six homers apiece, and Meridian’s Blake Morris has five, tied for seventh in the country. … Itawamba and Holmes lost over the weekend, meaning there are no unbeatens left in the state. ICC is 11-1, as is top-ranked Jones County. East Central and Pearl River are 9-1. Conference play, which has not yet begun, promises to be a wild ride.

05 Mar

so much winning

Mississippi’s college programs had a whole lot to celebrate over the weekend. Among the NCAA Division I teams, Mississippi State won all three of its games in the Shriner’s College Classic in Texas, Ole Miss took two of three at Long Beach State, Southern Miss won two of three in the Cox Diamond Invitational in Florida and Jackson State swept its first SWAC series at Alabama A&M. Delta State and Mississippi College scored Gulf South Conference sweeps in D-II. William Carey won its first SSAC series in NAIA, and D-III Millsaps took an SAA series from Rhodes, notching Jim Page’s 750th career win. D-III Belhaven snapped a six-game losing skid to pick up its first ASC win. And MUW took two games from Lane College to improve to 7-3. There were individual stars aplenty, and here’s a few:

Grae Kessinger, UM: 3-for-4, 2 RBIs, 2 runs in a 12-1 win at LBSU on Sunday.
Daniel Keating, USM: 2-for-3, 3 RBIs, 3 runs in a 20-4 win vs. Nicholls State on Sunday.
Jacob Billingsley, MSU: 6 shutout innings in a 4-1 win over Sam Houston State on Sunday.
Mark Watson, JSU: 5-hit shutout, 7 K’s in an 11-0 victory vs. Alabama A&M on Sunday.
Zack Shannon, DSU: 2 homers, 6 RBIs in a 10-4 win against Auburn-Montgomery on Saturday.
Billy Cameron, MC: 4-for-5, homer, 2 RBIs in a 9-5 win at Shorter on Sunday.
Tyler Reid, Carey: 3-for-5, 4 runs, RBI in a 10-4 victory against Bethel on Saturday.
Cavan Breland, Millsaps: 4-for-6, 3 RBIs, 3 runs in a doubleheader sweep vs. Rhodes on Saturday.
Justin Acevedo, Belhaven: 2-for-5, 3 RBIs in an 11-2 win over Mary Hardin-Baylor on Saturday.
Damain Benefield, MUW: 3-for-4, homer, 3 RBIs in a 9-1 win over Lane on Sunday.

04 Mar

box score browsing

Saturday’s marquee matchup – if there is such a thing in spring training – was the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox game in Ft. Myers, Fla. Southern Miss product Cody Carroll got the win and Mississippi State alum Jonathan Holder the save – they combined for three scoreless innings – for the Yankees in a 5-3 victory. Ex-State star Mitch Moreland went 1-for-3 for the BoSox. They were three of the 18 Magnolia State products who appeared in spring games on Saturday. Another worth noting: Hunter Renfroe, the former Mississippi State standout from Crystal Springs, went 2-for-4 with a homer – his second of the spring – in San Diego’s win against Oakland in Arizona. Renfroe, battling to keep a job with the Padres, had an RBI single off former Bulldogs ace Kendall Graveman, who started and yielded four runs in 1 1/3 innings. Ole Miss alum Bobby Wahl also pitched in that game for the A’s. Others who showed up in the box scores: Mike Mayers, Alex Presley, Louis Coleman, Spencer Turnbull, Corey Dickerson (see previous post), Braxton Lee, Bobby Bradley, Ti’Quan Forbes, T.J. House, Billy Hamilton, Brandon Woodruff and Jack Kruger. P.S. Sad to see that Jacob Lindgren, the former St. Stanislaus High and MSU star, has been shelved with soreness in his left elbow in Atlanta’s camp. Lindgren, a second-round pick by the Yankees in 2014, made the majors in 2015 but has barely pitched the last two seasons because of injury. He had Tommy John surgery in 2016. “We’re going to make sure with him,” Braves manager Brian Snitker told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about shutting Lindgren down for a time.

03 Mar

turn the page

Though it wasn’t a storybook moment, Corey Dickerson has symbolically turned a page in his career. The McComb native made his first plate appearance in a Pittsburgh uniform today, striking out against Philadelphia’s Ben Lively in a Grapefruit League game. Cast off – technically “designated for assignment” — by Tampa Bay in a rather surprising move on Feb. 18, Dickerson learned four days later he had been traded to Pittsburgh. He reported to Pirates camp in Bradenton, Fla., on Monday. He spent his time in baseball limbo back in Mississippi, where his wife gave birth to their second child. He also worked out at Meridian Community College, where he played in 2009 and ’10. Dickerson, who played high school ball at Brookhaven Academy, was an eighth-round draft pick by the Rockies out of MCC in 2010 and arrived in the big leagues in 2013. The 28-year-old came into this spring with a .280 average, 90 homers and 256 RBIs in 563 big league games, split between Colorado and Tampa Bay. An All-Star starter in 2017, the last thing he expected was to be DFA’d just after spring camp began in an apparent salary dump. “It’s hard to stomach,” he told mlb.com. “At the time, I was caught off guard.” In a sense, it was a lateral move. Neither the Rays nor the Pirates are expected to contend. Dickerson, a lefty hitter, is expected to be the Pirates’ left fielder, joining Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco in what shapes up as a pretty good outfield. P.S. Staying on the Pirates track: Adam Frazier isn’t expected to hold a regular job with Clint Hurdle’s Bucs but does figure to get a fair number of at-bats as a utility man. The Mississippi State alum, who had quite a day at the plate on Friday (three hits, including a triple, three RBIs and two runs), enjoyed a solid 2017 campaign. He batted .276 with six homers, 53 RBIs and 55 runs in 121 games in his second big league season, and he also won the Pirates’ Heart and Hustle Award.

02 Mar

purple wave

With nine wins in its first 12 games and three straight blowout victories, Millsaps College heads into its first conference series of the year riding a wave of positivity. The Majors, who host Rhodes in Southern Athletic Association play at Twenty Field this weekend, have scored at least 11 runs in their last three games, including an 11-2 win against local rival Belhaven University on Tuesday. Brennan Ducote, a junior from Lafayette, La., has been the main masher, with a .500 average, two homers, 14 RBIs and 11 runs. He hit .279 with one homer last year. Jimmy Johnstone is batting .429 and former Northwest Rankin High star Chase Callaway .386 for the Majors, hitting .314 as a team. Connor Haynes is 3-0 with a 0.73 ERA on the bump. The Majors went 19-23 in 2017 after a 20-21 finish the year before, uncharacteristic campaigns for an NCAA Division III program that has won 64 percent of its games since Jim Page became the coach in 1989.

01 Mar

battle-tested

Once he finally got his chance in the big leagues, former Mississippi State standout Brandon Woodruff did not disappoint. His numbers weren’t eye-popping – 2-3, 4.81 ERA in eight games last summer – but the touted prospect displayed some mettle for a Milwaukee team that was in a playoff race. “He made eight starts last year, and all of them were what we would all consider really big starts in big moments,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said in a recent mlb.com article. “I think he handled himself well.” Woodruff is currently battling as many as five other pitchers for two jobs on the Brewers’ opening day roster. He has made two Cactus League appearances, allowing two earned runs in 2 2/3 innings. The Brewers are aiming to be a contender again in 2018. P.S. Tyler Moore, the former Northwest Rankin High, Meridian Community College and MSU standout, has been in the Florida camp for MLB free agents and played in Tuesday’s exhibition game against a Japanese amateur team. First baseman/outfielder Moore, 31, hit .230 with six homers in 101 games for Miami last season. He has spent parts of five seasons in the majors. … A scoring change erased a two-run single by Petal High product Anthony Alford in Toronto’s Wednesday exhibition game (see previous post). Alford is 4-for-11 in five games this spring.