Monthly Archives: June 2018

30 Jun

oops …

Cody Reed was making strides in his quest to get back to the big leagues, winning two straight starts in impressive fashion at Triple-A Louisville. Then came Friday night’s outing at Toledo and a stumble. Reed, the former Northwest Mississippi Community College standout from Horn Lake, got knocked around for 10 hits and eight runs in seven innings. His record dipped to 2-6 and his ERA rose to 4.57 in 12 starts for Cincinnati’s International League affiliate. Reed had a good spring with the Reds and opened this season in the big leagues but appeared in just four games (5.40 ERA) before being sent down. After a decent start at Louisville, the 25-year-old lefty went through a rough patch where he lost five of six outings before the back-to-back wins that preceded Friday’s defeat. Reed was a second-round pick out of Northwest CC in 2013 by Kansas City and was a highly rated prospect when the Royals traded him to the Reds in mid-2015. He made The Show in 2016, going 0-7, 7.36 ERA for a bad team. He got his first and only MLB W last year. You know he is hungry for another. P.S. Ole Miss product and onetime big leaguer Alex Presley was released from a minor league club for the second time this season. He had been playing at Triple-A Charlotte (batting .198) in the Chicago White Sox’s system following a stint with Baltimore’s Triple-A club. Presley, 32, has a .263 career average over eight MLB campaigns.

29 Jun

watch for it

In the Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees clash slated for the next three days at Yankee Stadium, we might be lucky enough to see a matchup of Mississippians in a crucial spot: Amory native Mitch Moreland of the BoSox vs. Gulfport’s Jonathan Holder of the Yanks. Moreland, having a strong year (.290, 11 homers, 40 RBIs), typically hits in the middle of Boston’s order. (A left-handed hitter, he isn’t in the starting lineup tonight against lefty CC Sabathia.) Holder, having a breakout season (1.78 ERA in 26 games), has been getting more calls in key late-inning situations for New York. Moreland is 0-for-1 this year and 0-for-2 career against fellow Mississippi State product Holder, a right-hander. Boston hitters are 0-for-8 against Holder in 2018 and were 1-for-15 against him last year. Moreland is 4-for-14 vs. the Yanks in 2018, with a homer, against Masahiro Tanaka, currently out with an injury. He was 10-for-50 last year, with homers against Tanaka and Sonny Gray, Saturday’s scheduled starter. The Red Sox currently lead the Yankees by a game in the American League East. P.S. Former Ole Miss star Lance Lynn, currently pitching on a one-year deal with Minnesota, is considered an attractive trade piece, and one of the teams mentioned by mlb.com as a good fit is – drumroll – the Yankees. After a sluggish start in 2018, Lynn, a veteran who eats innings, is 4-2, 2.40 over his last seven starts.

29 Jun

minor matters

Mississippi State product Jacob Robson got a hit and stole a base in his Triple-A debut for Toledo on Thursday. The lefty-hitting outfielder, an eighth-round pick by Detroit in 2016, batted .286 with seven homers, 32 RBIs and 11 steals at Double-A Erie. Robson has hit .296 with 11 homers and 48 steals in his minor league career. He joins fellow former Bulldogs star Zac Houston and Southwest Mississippi Community College alum Kade Scivicque on the Toledo team. … Ex-Southern Miss standout Cody Carroll, a New York Yankees farmhand, and State alum Dakota Hudson, in St. Louis’ system, have been selected for the Triple-A All-Star Game, set July 11 at Columbus, Ohio. Former Mississippi Braves ace Kolby Allard also made the International League team. … MSU alum Nathaniel Lowe, who was wearing out the Class A Florida State League, is doing much the same at Double-A Montgomery, Tampa Bay’s Southern League affiliate. Lowe, a left-handed swinging first baseman, is hitting .355 with five homers and 17 RBIs in 16 games for the Biscuits. He already has won an SL player of the week award and hit a walk-off homer. A third-year pro, Lowe hit .356 with 10 homers and 44 RBIs at Port Charlotte to begin 2018. … Meridian Community College standout Milton Smith Jr., a 22nd-round pick by Miami earlier this month, is 10-for-26 with six runs and three steals in seven games for the rookie Gulf Coast League Marlins. He hit .404 with 67 runs and 37 bags in 52 games for the Eagles this season. … The recent signing by Konnor Pilkington (third round, Chicago White Sox) leaves only J.T. Ginn (first round, Los Angeles Dodgers) and J.P. France (14th round, Houston) as unsigned draftees among the Mississippians picked in the first 15 rounds. Signing deadline is July 6 for most picks.

28 Jun

birthday props

Richard Hidalgo, Jackson Generals star of the mid-1990s, got some recognition today – his 43rd birthday – in a column on mlb.com by Joe Posnanski. Posnanski was highlighting “most surprising” major league seasons, of which Hidalgo had one in 2000. In his fourth MLB campaign, he batted .314 with 44 homers and 122 RBIs as Houston’s centerfielder, far and away the best year of a modest career. Hidalgo was a highly rated and impressive-looking Astros prospect when he played in Jackson in 1995 and ’96, hitting .280 with 28 homers over those two seasons. He could play the outfield, too, and throw and run. He spent nine years in the big leagues and finished with 171 bombs. As good as Hidalgo’s 2000 season was, it didn’t make Posnanski’s “most surprising” top 10. But former Jackson Mets star Kevin Mitchell’s 1989 season with San Francisco did. Mitchell, who played at Smith-Wills Stadium in 1983, hit .291 with 47 homers and 125 RBIs that year, winning National League MVP honors on a pennant-winning team that included Will Clark. (And, yes, that was also the year Mitchell made his famous over-the-shoulder, bare-handed catch.)

28 Jun

that’s a bummer

This year was going to be different for Zack Cozart. After enduring four straight losing seasons in Cincinnati, the ex-Ole Miss star signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Angels, a star-studded club expected to contend for the postseason. If the Angels do make the playoffs, Cozart will only be watching. The team announced Wednesday night that the veteran infielder will have season-ending shoulder surgery. The news broke during the Angels’ game at Boston, and MLB Network analyst Tom Verducci called it “a key injury” for the team, which is winning but still searching for top-of-the-lineup consistency. “That’s another option that is gone now,” Verducci said. Cozart, a 2017 National League All-Star who batted .297 with 24 homers for the Reds, had been slow to adjust to his new league, batting .219 with five homers in 58 games. He had started at third base, second and shortstop. This is the second major injury for the 32-year-old in four years; he missed most of the 2015 season with a knee.

27 Jun

odds and ends

Atlanta has called up pitcher Wes Parsons, who becomes the sixth former Mississippi Braves player to be promoted to the big club this season. The others are Jesse Biddle, Ronald Acuna, Mike Soroka, Dustin Peterson and Evan Phillips (who didn’t get into a game). Parsons was 1-2 with a 1.23 ERA in eight games for the Double-A M-Braves this season before being bumped to Triple-A Gwinnett in late May. He also pitched for the M-Braves last year. Over 130 M-Braves alums have risen to the majors since the team moved from Greenville, S.C., to Pearl in 2005. … Drew Pomeranz was slated to throw a simulated game today at Fenway Park as he tries to work his way back to Boston’s rotation. The lefty out of Ole Miss has missed most of June with arm and neck pain. A 17-game winner for the Red Sox in 2017, he is 1-3 with a 6.81 ERA this season. He’s also a pending free agent, which he says is not something on his mind these days. “I’m focused on just getting my stuff right and just being myself and we’ll see what happens,” he told masslive.com. … Bryce Brown, the former Jackson State star now in the Tampa Bay system, had an interesting box score line on Tuesday: 0-3-0-0. Brown walked three times and stole second base each time, scoring half of Hudson Valley’s runs in a 6-1 victory against Connecticut in the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. Brown is hitting .208 with seven steals in 10 games in his second pro season. … Justin Henry, ex-Ole Miss standout from Vicksburg and a longtime minor league player, is the Southeast area scout for Detroit and spent many hours observing overall No. 1 pick Casey Mize, the right-hander out of Auburn who signed Monday with Detroit for $7.5 million. … D.J. Davis, the Stone County High product and former first-round draft pick (see previous posts), was released earlier this month by Toronto. The 23-year-old outfielder was batting .239 in 36 games at Class A Dunedin. He hit .242 in seven pro seasons, never rising above A-ball. … Pearl River Community College alum Jacob Taylor, a fourth-rounder in 2015, retired in May. Dogged by injuries, the right-hander appeared in only 25 games in four years in Pittsburgh’s system, seven games in A-ball this year. … The Bray brothers from Vancleave also are out of the game. Tyler Bray, a pitcher who reached Triple-A in 2017 with St. Louis, was released in April. Outfielder Colin Bray was in high-A last year with Arizona but missed most of the season with injuries. He retired in March.

26 Jun

it’s a wrap

Time to box up the 2018 college season. Put away the bats and balls for a few weeks and make a few acknowledgements:
If there were an award for Team of the Year, it would have to go to Mississippi State, which didn’t win as many games as Ole Miss or Southern Miss (or Delta State, for that matter) but made a captivating postseason run for the ages that ended one win short of the College World Series finals. The banana-powered Bulldogs finished 39-29 and should be nationally ranked across the board when the final polls come out. Gary Henderson did a great job as an interim coach, taking over in an adverse situation, and not retaining him seems a curious and possibly regrettable move in Starkville.
There are many other kudos to hand out. Ole Miss went 48-17, won the SEC Tournament and hosted an NCAA regional. USM (44-18) swept both C-USA titles and also went to a regional. Jackson State finished 34-18. Delta State went 42-11 and made an NCAA Division II regional, as did Mississippi College, which ended the year 36-17, one of its best seasons ever. William Carey went 36-25 and hosted an NAIA regional. Blue Mountain finished 29-23, Division III Millsaps went 25-19 and MUW, in its inaugural season, came home at 21-15 after participating in the USCAA Small College World Series. Alcorn State (13-39), Mississippi Valley State (11-35), Belhaven (12-27) and Tougaloo (19-23) were the only four-year schools to post losing records.
Among the jucos, MACJC champion Pearl River (No. 4), Meridian (14), Jones County (15) and Mississippi Gulf Coast (18) were ranked in the final NJCAA Division II poll.
Game of the year? If you limited it to games between state schools, it’d be hard to top the State-UM game at Pearl’s Trustmark Park on April 24, which the Bulldogs won on Luke Alexander’s two-run double in the bottom of the ninth before a crowd of 8,500-plus. Runner-up: MC beating Delta State 7-4 in an elimination game in the D-II South Regional at Lakeland, Fla. The Choctaws’ Billy Cameron drove in the go-ahead run with a two-run single in the seventh. Worth mentioning: Jackson State-Alcorn in Lorman on March 25. The Tigers rallied from 8-4 down in the sixth inning to win 13-8 and ended the game with a triple play.
No position player in the state had a better year than DSU’s Zack Shannon. He hit .406 with a record 31 homers and 93 RBIs and has picked up all kinds of national honors. USM’s Nick Sandlin, who also garnered national awards and beat out Shannon (and others) for the state’s Ferriss Trophy, was certainly the state’s pitcher of the year, going 10-0, 1.06 ERA in 15 starts. Gulf Coast CC’s Brandon Parker won a juco national player of the year award and both Shannon and Sandlin were semifinalists for the biggest of individual prizes, the Golden Spikes Award, a testament to the quality of ball played in the Magnolia State.
Three state schools (DSU, Carey and Hinds CC) made it to the World Series level in 2017. Only one did so this season, but it was hardly a down year.

26 Jun

whatever happened to …

Chris Coghlan started in left field on Monday, and the Ole Miss product must have felt a little out of place. The 33-year-old veteran of 801 big league games was joined in the outfield by two 19-year-olds. The shortstop in front of him was 18. The pitcher Coghlan faced in the bottom of the first inning was 19. Coghlan was in Sloan Park in Mesa, Ariz., suiting up for one of the Chicago Cubs’ two Arizona League teams, the lowest rung in the minors. How’d he get there? Coghlan was released last August by Toronto and was without a job until signing a minor league deal in late March with the Cubs, with whom he won a World Series ring in 2016. He had been sidelined with a shoulder injury until last week. He is on the Triple-A Iowa roster and is playing in the AZL on a rehab assignment. He went 0-for-3 with a walk on Monday and is at .250 with a double, a triple and an RBI in five games all told. The National League’s rookie of the year with Florida back in 2009, Coghlan hit just .200 in 36 games for Toronto in 2017. He is a .258 career hitter in the majors and can play multiple positions. It’ll be interesting to see if this new road leads back to the big leagues. P.S. Also in the AZL on a rehab assignment is ex-Ole Miss star Stuart Turner, who is batting .350 in six games for Cincinnati’s rookie team. Turner, 26, played 37 games in the big leagues last year as a Rule 5 draftee by the Reds. He lost his 40-man roster spot this spring and was sent to Triple-A Louisville, where the catcher played just 12 games before landing on the disabled list in early May.

25 Jun

next man up?

The first – and so far, only – Mississippian to make a big league debut this season is Braxton Lee, the Ole Miss alum from Picayune who played his first game back on March 30 for Miami. Next man up might be Zac Houston, the ex-Mississippi State star who has reached Triple-A in Detroit’s system in just his third pro season. Houston, 6 feet 5, 250 pounds, has posted a 1.59 ERA in nine relief appearances with one save and 18 strikeouts in 11 1/3 innings for Toledo. He began 2018 at Double-A Erie and earned the promotion after putting up a 2.60 ERA in 13 games there. Houston dominated in the Arizona Fall League last year, allowing no earned runs with 18 punchouts in 11 1/3 innings. Rated the Tigers’ No. 14 prospect by Perfect Game, the former 11th-round draft pick has fanned 183 batters in 116 1/3 career innings, an average of 14.2 per nine. He appears to be ready for a shot with the Tigers, though they’d have to clear a 40-man roster spot for him. P.S. If Houston isn’t the next to make it, it could be Cody Carroll, the former Southern Miss star from Tennessee (not to be confused with the Cody Carroll from Florida who is currently at USM). Tennessee Cody Carroll is having a fine season at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in the New York Yankees’ system. He has a 2.76 ERA, three wins and seven saves for SWB. Featuring an upper 90s fastball, he has punched out 44 hitters in 32 2/3 innings. Drafted in 2015, the 6-foot-5 Carroll has a 2.74 career ERA with 20 saves. The depth of the Yankees’ big league bullpen might make it tough for Carroll to get a promotion this summer, but stuff happens. And he’s surely opened some eyes.

25 Jun

hot topics

Cincinnati is on a tear, and so is Billy Hamilton. The ex-Taylorsville High standout has a seven-game hitting streak that coincides with the seven-game winning streak the Reds take into Atlanta tonight. Hamilton is 11-for-25 over that streak with nine runs, a homer, three RBIs and four steals. Batting .187 overall on June 16, he’s now at .214 (.300 on-base percentage), still not good but, along with the defense he provides in center field, good enough to keep him in the lineup. He has three homers, 17 RBIs, 40 runs and 15 bags on the season. … Mitch Moreland, the Mississippi State product from Amory, also has a seven-game hit streak, which he extended on Sunday with his 11th homer in Boston’s big win against Seattle. Moreland is 12-for-27 during this roll, with a homer, seven RBIs and nine runs. Sunday’s bomb was his first since June 3. He is batting .299 for the year. … And then there are the Mississippi Braves, who set a franchise record with an 11-run inning in a 17-1 victory over Jacksonville on Sunday at Trustmark Park in Pearl. The big fifth frame included a two-run homer by Brandon Downes (his first as an M-Brave), two-run doubles by Travis Demeritte, Alex Jackson and Luis Marte, an RBI double by winning pitcher Touki Toussaint and a run-scoring single by Alay Lago. The Double-A M-Braves produced an eight-run inning in an 11-2 win against Jacksonville on Thursday and are 3-1 in the second half of the Southern League season. They limped in with a 29-41 mark in the first half.