Monthly Archives: August 2020

21 Aug

every new beginning …

It may finally be time for the Toronto Blue Jays and Anthony Alford to part ways. Alford, the former Mr. Baseball from Petal, was designated for assignment by the Jays, who have had the outfielder in their system since 2012. Once their top-rated prospect, Alford has just 75 major league plate appearances spread over four seasons. He never won a regular job. He could wind up staying in the Toronto system, but it seems more likely he’ll move on. If, that is, at age 26, he can get an opportunity with another club. Alford was drafted by the Blue Jays in the third round in 2012, even though he had made it clear he wanted to play college football. After stints with Southern Miss and Ole Miss, he decided to focus on baseball in 2014. He has been playing catch-up ever since and dealing with injuries along the way. Maybe he just needs a good break.

19 Aug

high performance

There is no MLB award for Best Performance on a Lousy Team, but if there were, Mitch Moreland would be a top candidate. Moreland, the former Mississippi State standout from Amory, leads the Boston Red Sox in batting, slugging, homers and RBIs. The Red Sox, whose depleted pitching staff can’t get anybody out, are 7-18 after halting a nine-game losing skid today. Moreland, who went 2-for-3, is at .348, almost 100 points above his career average. The lefty hitter is even 3-for-8 vs. left-handers, whom he rarely faces. He has six homers and 14 RBIs in 16 games. An 11-year veteran at 34, Moreland is in his fourth year with Boston, having signed with the Red Sox three times as a free agent. He’ll be a free agent again after this season, which raises the possibility that he might be traded before the Aug. 31 deadline if the Red Sox look to add pieces for the future. “We understand this time of year that kind of stuff is a possibility, but we’ve got more things going on in the immediate future for us right now,” Moreland said in a recent Providence Journal story. “Just trying to get back to playing good baseball and getting back on track here.” He has played good baseball, very good. The team may be hopelessly lost.

18 Aug

soldiering on

Kendall Graveman, dealing with a benign bone tumor in the C6 part of his cervical spine, plans to rejoin the Seattle team in the near future, according to reports. The ex-Mississippi State star, who went on the injured list with “neck spasms” after two starts this season, has been taking medication for inflammation for a couple of years. He is putting off a surgical procedure. “So the prayer and the hope is that doctors tell me that this thing goes away with time,” he told mlb.com. “That’s kind of where we’re at right now with it.” Graveman, 29, a six-year veteran, is in his first year with the Mariners as he comes back from 2018 Tommy John surgery. He is 0-2 with an 8.31 ERA. He has resumed pitching at the team’s alternate training site.

17 Aug

big league chew

Pitching on 20 days “rest,” Mississippi State product Dakota Hudson went four innings for St. Louis on Sunday and allowed just two hits and a lone run. Hudson had last pitched on July 26; St. Louis’ season was interrupted three days later by COVID-19 issues. Hudson (0-2, 5.40 ERA) was the tough-luck loser as the Cardinals fell to the Chicago White Sox 7-2 in their third game back from the hiatus. Hudson’s replacement, rookie Roel Ramirez, gave up the record-tying four straight home runs in the fifth inning. … If anyone was wondering, no Mississippi-connected hitters have been involved in any of the 10 occurrences of the back-to-back-to-back-to-back blasts. But … on June 8, 1961, when the Milwaukee Braves became the first team to do it, Jackson native Marshall Bridges, pitching for Cincinnati, yielded the last two homers to Joe Adcock and Frank Thomas. (Bridges actually had a nice MLB career: 23 wins, 25 saves, a 3.75 ERA and a World Series ring over seven seasons.) … Ex-Ole Miss star Drew Pomeranz already has a career-best four saves for San Diego and may get even more opportunities now that Kirby Yates, the erstwhile closer, has gone on the injured list with an ailing elbow. Pomeranz has not allowed a run in nine appearances (7 2/3 innings) entering Monday’s play. … Former Petal High standout Anthony Alford hit his second career homer on Sunday in a rare start for Toronto. He is 2-for-10 this season. Alford’s first career homer was a memorable walk-off bomb last year. … Meridian Community College alum Corey Dickerson went on the bereavement list on Saturday, which means he’ll miss a minimum of three games for Miami. He is batting .208 in his first year with the Marlins. … Wondering what’s next for Brian Dozier, the former Southern Miss star who was designated for assignment by the New York Mets on Sunday. The veteran second baseman, who got only 15 at-bats with the Mets after joining the club on July 30, could be traded or claimed on waivers by another club, but it seems more likely he’ll become a free agent — again. Over a two-year span, the one-time All-Star has been with five different teams. He batted .238 with 20 homers for Washington last season.

16 Aug

golden oldies

The old Negro Leagues, which Major League Baseball is celebrating today, produced not only great players but great teams. Mississippians played major roles on some of the best. There is surely ample debate about which Negro League team deserves to be called “the best,” but the short list would have to include the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords. There were four future Hall of Famers on that team, five if you count Satchel Paige, who was on the roster but held out most of the season. The center fielder and leadoff batter for the Crawfords, the Negro National League champs in ’35, was James “Cool Papa” Bell, the Starkville native and Hall of Famer whose speed is legend. Clarksdale native David “Lefty” Harvey was a pitcher on that team, which also featured the incredible slugger Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston and Judy Johnson. Bell was also the leadoff man for the 1930 St. Louis Stars, another NNL champion with a stacked lineup that included Willie “The Devil” Wells, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe (from the Ken Burns films) and George “Mule” Suttles. Nicknames apparently were a Negro Leagues staple. William Foster, who grew up in Rodney and played and coached at Alcorn A&M, didn’t have a nickname — he was known simply as Bill or Willie — but did have a great arsenal of pitches as the left-handed ace of the 1927 Chicago American Giants. That team won the NNL pennant and the Negro World Series, with Hall of Famer Foster throwing a shutout in the decisive eighth game. The Giants’ roster also featured Pythias Russ, “Gentleman Dave” Malarcher, Walter “Steel Arm” Davis and Willie “Pigmeat” Powell. The 1945 Cleveland Buckeyes, with Jackson native Buddy Armour playing center field, won the Negro American League pennant and the World Series in a sweep against a Homestead Grays team that trotted out a 42-year-old Bell and Greenwood native Dave Hoskins. The Buckeyes, 53-16 in the regular season according to “Only the Ball Was White,” were led by future major leaguer Sam “The Jet” Jethroe and the brothers Jefferson, Willie and George, both pitchers. Hattiesburg’s Rufus Lewis was the ace of the 1946 Newark Eagles, who won the NNL title and the World Series in seven games against Kansas City’s Monarchs. Lewis won Game 7. Future big leaguers Larry Doby and Monte Irvin and Max “Dr. Cyclops” Manning were other stars on that great Newark team. … All MLB players, managers, coaches and umpires will wear today a patch commemorating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro National League. The logo is based on the official logo created by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

15 Aug

good, bad and ugly

Good: OK, this was more like great. Lance Lynn, the veteran right-hander out of Ole Miss, threw a complete-game two-hitter — at Coors Field, no less — to pace Texas to a 3-2 win Friday night against Colorado. Lynn (3-0, 1.11 ERA) struck out the side in the eighth inning and reportedly told manager Chris Woodward as he arrived in the dugout, “I’m finishing it.” He got Trevor Story (fly out), Charlie Blackmon (ground out) and Nolan Arenado (fly out) to end it, notching just his third career complete game and first since 2014 with St. Louis. Lynn threw 110 pitches, walked none and fanned six.
Bad: Brandon Woodruff, the ex-Mississippi State standout, was pulled in the fifth inning of Milwaukee’s game at Wrigley Field after allowing six straight batters to reach as Chicago bolted to a 3-1 lead. Woodruff took a no-hitter into the fifth but suddenly lost command, yielding four hits, two walks and the three runs in the inning. It was the second straight abbreviated outing for Woodruff, who saw his ERA rise to 3.16. He got a no-decision as the Brewers’ bullpen and a three-run bomb by Christian Yelich bailed him out in a 4-3 Milwaukee victory.
Ugly: Southern Miss product Cody Carroll was recalled from Baltimore’s alternate site on Friday and was called on for mop-up duty in the regularly scheduled half of the twinbill against Washington. He got five outs but gave up six runs in the 15-3 loss. His ERA now stands at 54.00 in three appearances; he didn’t record an out in his 2020 debut last month and was charged with four runs. Oh, and he was sent back to the alternate site today.

14 Aug

powering up?

One of the ironies of Tampa Bay’s strong start – the Rays (12-8) just put up 42 runs in a four-game sweep at Boston – is that Hunter Renfroe, acquired for his power, hadn’t provided a whole lot before flexing some on Thursday. The former Mississippi State star hit two bombs in the 17-8 rout, his first homers since July 27. After going 4-for-11 in two starts at Fenway Park, Renfroe is batting .200 with four homers and 14 RBIs on the season. He picked up five of his RBIs in the Red Sox series. Both of Renfroe’s homers on Thursday were impressive, one to right-center, the other yanked way over the Green Monster in left. “It’s pretty cool,” Renfroe said, in an mlb.com story, about clearing the Monster. “Obviously this is a historic field and a beautiful field, just to kind of check that off my home run list of stadiums to hit one (in) is pretty cool.” He hit 89 homers in three-plus years with San Diego. He’s about due to go off. The Rays play Toronto in Buffalo this weekend. There were eight homers at Sahlen Field, the converted minor league facility, on Wednesday. P.S. Chad Smith, drafted by Miami out of Ole Miss in 2016, has been traded to Colorado and will move from the Marlins’ alternate training site to the Rockies’. He’s not going on the 40-man roster. Smith, a 6-foot-4 right-hander, went 4-4 with a 4.22 ERA in his one year in Oxford after transferring from an Alabama juco. He has a 4.46 ERA in four minor league seasons, reaching Double-A Jacksonville of the Southern League last year.

14 Aug

late bloomer

There’s a sizable list of former Mississippi Braves players who, for whatever reason, moved on to other organizations and enjoyed success. Among a group that includes current big leaguers Charlie Morton, Jose Martinez, Mallex Smith, Chasen Shreve, Tommy LaStella, Rio Ruiz, Willians Astudillo and Jose Peraza, none has been a bigger surprise than Dylan Moore. Moore, who debuted with Seattle last year and hit .206, has become one of the club’s key players this season. He is batting .294 with four homers, nine RBIs and four steals while playing five different positions. “He is an absolute stud,” teammate Kyle Seager told mlb.com. “He is a ballplayer. There is no doubt about it.” Call him a late bloomer. Moore is 28 and in his fourth organization since Texas drafted him out of Central Florida five years ago. Atlanta got him in a trade in 2016, and he was the M-Braves’ regular shortstop in 2017. He didn’t really distinguish himself, batting .207, slugging .292 and fielding at a .974 clip with 13 errors. The Braves released him in 2018 and he caught on with Milwaukee, playing briefly with Biloxi before being cut loose at the end of that year. Seattle picked him up and he made the Mariners’ roster out of spring training in 2019. In July of last year, Moore garnered attention when he infamously committed run-scoring errors on three consecutive plays. Well, forget that. He’s getting attention for very different reasons now.

12 Aug

welcome back

Tim Anderson, the ex-East Central Community College star, didn’t waste any time making an impact for the Chicago White Sox in his first game off the injured list. Anderson led off Tuesday’s game with a walk and came around to score the first run in the White Sox’s 8-4 win at Detroit. He got a hit and scored again later in the game as the White Sox, expected to bid for a playoff spot this season, improved to 9-9. The defending American League batting champ, who hit .335 last season, is at .324 in 34 at-bats in 2020. He had been out since July 31 with a groin injury and was no doubt eager to get back in the lineup. Anderson told reporters pregame that his plan for his return was simple: “Just have fun. We’ll have fun. We’ll bring fun back.” Anderson has scored nine runs in his limited duty but has just one homer and no stolen bases. He hit 18 bombs last year and stole 17 bases. In addition to fun, he’ll bring some power and speed back, too.

11 Aug

time crunch

The season is young. But it’s also short. And several Mississippians in the majors are off to chilly starts at the plate that have to be concerning. For Austin Riley, the former DeSoto Central High standout, there was a glimmer of positivity on Monday in an otherwise dreadful day for Atlanta. Riley went 2-for-4 with a home run in the Braves’ 13-8 loss at Philadelphia. His homer, No. 3 on the year, came during the Braves’ seven-run “rally” in the ninth inning. Riley is batting .167 and has struck out 17 times in 42 at-bats, frequently flailing at breaking balls out of the zone. Pitch recognition is something he has reportedly worked on since last year. As a rookie in 2019, Riley came out hot and then faded dramatically. Given the opportunity to take the regular third base job this season, he hasn’t stepped up. And, yes, there are others who have yet to step up. McComb’s Jarrod Dyson has scuffled in his first season with Pittsburgh, hitting .118 in 13 games. Note: He is 35. Teammate Adam Frazier, a Mississippi State product, is at .177 with five runs in 15 games as the Pirates’ leadoff batter. Crystal Springs native Hunter Renfroe, in a new uniform in 2020, is batting .159 for Tampa Bay with two homers and nine RBIs. His two homers were on July 27. He has just two RBIs in August. Corey Dickerson, a career .285 hitter, is at .229 through 10 games with his new club, Miami, and has just one RBI. Fulton’s Brian Dozier and Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton, recent additions to the New York Mets’ active roster, haven’t seen a lot of action or produced much. Dozier is 2-for-15, Hamilton 0-for-10. P.S. Hot-hitting JaCoby Jones, the Richton High alum, smacked an inside-the-park homer on Monday for Detroit and now has five round-trippers, one shy of ex-State star Mitch Moreland for the all-Mississippi home run lead. Moreland hit two for Boston on Sunday, including a walk-off blast over the Green Monster, but was out of the lineup Monday.