August 2021 - Page 4 of 4 - All Mississippi Baseball

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Blaine Crim surely hated to see July come to an end, but the former Mississippi College standout can’t be disappointed in how August began. Crim, playing for High-A Hickory in the Texas Rangers’ organization, went 2-for-5 with his 20th homer and two RBIs on Sunday to power the Crawdads to a 12-7 win against Greenville. This comes on the heels of a July in which the 24-year-old first baseman hit .393 (.843 slugging percentage) with 12 home runs. Often hitting behind Mississippi State alum Justin Foscue in the Hickory lineup, Crim is batting .300 on the season with 61 RBIs. His 20 homers is tied for the High-A East lead. An Alabama native, Crim was the Gulf South Conference player of the year at MC in 2019 and was drafted in the 19th round by the Rangers that summer. He batted .373 for the Choctaws in ’19, leaving school as the career hits leader, and continued to mash in the minors, hitting .335 with eight homers at short-season Class A Spokane. Missing a full season of work in 2020 — when there was no minor league ball — doesn’t seem to have fazed Crim. P.S. Billy Hamilton’s running, diving, sliding catch in the rain back on July 6 was rated the No. 1 play for July by MLB Network. Alas, the Taylorsville High product, now with the Chicago White Sox, landed on the injured list Sunday with an oblique strain.

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One call rarely decides a game, though it can certainly alter the course. Everyone watching Saturday’s Milwaukee-Atlanta game at Truist Park saw Brandon Woodruff throw strike three past Dansby Swanson for the second out of the Braves sixth inning. Everyone except home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor, who called it a ball. (Doesn’t it seem that bad ball-strike calls have become epidemic in the majors?) Swanson hit the next pitch out of the park to give the Braves a 3-1 lead. Mississippi State product Woodruff glared and barked at Bucknor as he left the game. Swanson, the former Mississippi Braves star, later hit a grand slam as the Braves claimed an 8-1 victory. Swanson said after the game that, yes, he thought the sixth-inning pitch was a strike. Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said, yes, it was a strike — but Swanson rated credit for banging the hanger that followed. Woodruff, who has endured a lot of tough luck this season, said in an mlb.com piece: “It [stinks] because we’re playing good baseball and something like that kind of bugs me a bit. I’ll get over it.” Woodruff, a 2021 All-Star, saw his record fall to 7-6 despite a 2.26 ERA, among the best in the big leagues. He was 0-3 in July for the first-place Brewers, who just don’t score when the big right-hander pitches. P.S. Delvin Zinn, the former Itawamba Community College star from Pontotoc, got a chance to try out his wheels on a new track on Saturday. He had a flat. Leading the High-A Central in stolen bases with 42, Zinn was promoted to Double-A Tennessee by the Chicago Cubs. He walked in his first at-bat, then promptly got picked off and cut down trying to steal second. Zinn went 0-for-1 with two walks and a sac bunt for the Smokies. He was batting .234 with four homers and 42 runs for South Bend in his fifth pro season.