Monthly Archives: September 2022

06 Sep

these are the moments

As the big league season grows shorter, the games get bigger. None was more significant Monday than the clash of contenders at T-Mobile Park, where ex-Ole Miss star Lance Lynn rose to the occasion and Mississippi State product Adam Frazier came up empty at a critical time. Lynn threw seven dominant innings to lead the Chicago White Sox to a 3-2 win against host Seattle. Frazier came on as a pinch hitter in the ninth for the Mariners with the tying and winning runs in scoring position and struck out to end the game. The White Sox, who have battled adversity all year, remained 2 games back in the American League Central, in third place behind leader Cleveland and Minnesota. The Mariners, who had won seven straight, dropped into a tie for the AL wild card lead with Tampa Bay; the White Sox are essentially out of that race. Lynn, 5-5 on the year but 4-1 over his last seven starts, allowed just three hits and an unearned run, struck out 11 and retired the last 17 batters he faced. He got 25 swings-and-misses. MSU alum Kendall Graveman worked a scoreless eighth for the ChiSox, preserving a 3-1 lead for his 23rd hold. Things got a little hairy for closer Liam Hendriks in the ninth, but he blew away Frazier on three pitches to seal the win, the fifth in six games for Chicago. Frazier, an All-Star for Pittsburgh in 2021, has had an uneven season for the M’s, hitting just .242. Game 2 of the three-game series is today. P.S. George County High product Justin Steele has been placed on the injured list with a back problem by the Cubs. … Ex-State star Dakota Hudson was optioned to Triple-A Memphis as St. Louis cleared a roster spot for Jack Flaherty. … Former Mississippi Braves star Drew Waters hit his first MLB homer Monday for Kansas City; he is batting .237 in 13 games.

05 Sep

putting up numbers

Blaine Crim, the ex-Mississippi College standout, batted .323 with five home runs and 16 RBIs in August, capping his strong month with a three-hit, two-homer, five-RBI game for Double-A Frisco last Wednesday. August ended. Crim’s mashing did not. On Sunday, he homered for the fifth straight game in a win at Amarillo. That’s 22 homers on the season. He is batting .556 with 10 RBIs in four September games. He set a Frisco record with five hits in a game on Friday (see previous post). For the season, he is at .291 with 80 RBIs. No flash in the pan, the 5-foot-11, 200-pound first baseman has put up impressive numbers over three pro campaigns: .305 career average (.369 on-base percentage) with 59 homers. The Rangers have a strong farm system, but it is still hard to fathom how Crim does not appear on their Top 30 prospect list as compiled by MLB Pipeline. He has quite the resume. He batted .350 over four seasons at NCAA Division II MC and was the Gulf South Conference’s player of the year in 2019. Drafted in the 19th round by Texas, the Alabama native was the Northwest League MVP in 2019, a High-A East All-Star in 2021 and a Puerto Rican Winter League batting champion earlier this year. He went 4-for-12 in MLB spring training games in March. After the way Crim has handled the challenge of Double-A pitching over the past two seasons, it’ll be interesting to see what his future holds.

04 Sep

comfort zone

Shortly after he was drafted in July, former Ole Miss star Tim Elko said his experience against SEC competition and in NCAA Tournament play had prepared him well for pro ball. “I’ll feel pretty comfortable getting in there,” he told milb.com. He appears to have been right. Playing at Low-Class A Kannapolis in the Chicago White Sox’s system, the 23-year-old Elko has 10 hits in his last six games and boosted his average to .310 in 10 games there overall. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound first baseman, who set a single-season record with 24 homers for the national champion Rebels this season, started slowly in rookie ball, going 4-for-26 with 13 strikeouts, though three of the hits were homers. He moved up to Kannapolis on Aug. 23 and started to click against better quality pitching. He went 3-for-4 on Saturday, his second three-hit game for the Cannon Ballers. He has hit one homer, giving him four for the year. Elko cemented his place in Ole Miss lore when he returned from a serious knee injury in 2021 to help the Rebels’ drive to an NCAA Super Regional appearance. He was a team captain this season as a fifth-year senior, put on a stunning slugging performance in the Coral Cables Regional and made the College World Series All-Tournament team. The White Sox drafted Elko in the 10th round. “He’s got a chance to have a nice career in front of him,” Chicago scouting director Mike Shirley said at the time. P.S. DeSoto Central High alum Austin Riley homered for the fourth straight game Saturday in Atlanta’s 2-1 win vs. Miami. He has 35 round-trippers on the year, third-most in MLB. Great comment in an mlb.com story from rookie Michael Harris II, like Riley a former Mississippi Braves star: “I tell him every time he hits a home run [that] I wanna be like him when I grow up. … I really look up to him, and he’s a big leader in this clubhouse.” … UM product Drew Pomeranz reportedly suffered a setback in his injury rehab, casting doubt on whether he’ll pitch for San Diego this season. He had arm surgery a year ago in August. … St. Louis has announced that ex-Mississippi State star Dakota Hudson will move to the bullpen. He is 7-7 with a 4.43 ERA as a starter this season.

03 Sep

buckle up

Seat belts should have been required Friday night for the Amarillo fans in Hodgetown ballpark. They were subjected to a rough ride by a visiting Frisco RoughRiders team that bashed eight home runs, three by a pair of Mississippi products. Former Mississippi College standout Blaine Crim went 5-for-6 with his 20th homer and ex-Mississippi State star Justin Foscue added two bombs, his 13th and 14th, as Frisco steamrolled Amarillo 21-2 in a Texas League game. Crim set a Frisco record for hits in a game, boosting his average to .290, and scored four times. Both he and Foscue, the Texas Rangers’ No. 5 prospect, homered in the Riders’ record-setting 11-run fifth inning. The 21 total runs was also a franchise record. Foscue, batting .289 after a 3-for-6, drove in four runs and scored three. The host Sod Poodles, an Arizona affiliate, put third baseman Ti’Quan Forbes on the mound in the ninth. The former Mr. Baseball from Columbia High yielded two hits, including a homer, in his professional pitching debut. Forbes, in his eighth minor league season, did have two of Amarillo’s 10 hits. P.S. Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton made his Minnesota debut on Friday and was caught stealing as a pinch runner in the eighth inning of a 4-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox. He is 321-of-393 (81.7 percent) in his MLB career that started in 2013.

02 Sep

hit parade

Matt Wallner’s power isn’t in question. The key to the ex-Southern Miss star’s long-term success, according to the scouting report by MLB Pipeline, is improving his overall hit tool. Minnesota Twins brass have to be beaming over what they saw on Thursday night, when their No. 5 prospect put on a veritable hitting clinic at Triple-A St. Paul. Wallner hit for the cycle, banging out five hits all told, including his fifth homer for the Saints, and driving in six runs in an 18-6 victory against Omaha. “It felt pretty good,” Wallner told milb.com. “It was the first time I’ve ever been able to do something like that in my life, so it was pretty fun.” The career home run leader at USM, Wallner now has 26 homers this season, not including the jaw-dropping one he blasted in the All-Star Futures Game. The 6-foot-5, lefty-hitting outfielder batted .299 with 21 homers at Double-A Wichita before being promoted to St. Paul on July 14. He is at .245 in 37 games for the Saints. He is still striking out at a high clip — 49 in 139 at-bats — but has 27 walks, boosting his on-base percentage to .379. A Minnesota native, Wallner was the 39th overall pick in 2019 by the Twins, the team he dreamed of playing for as a kid. He is close. … Jordan Westburg, the former Mississippi State star and Baltimore’s No. 5 prospect, homered for the third straight game for Triple-A Norfolk, giving the infielder 14 for the Tides and 23 on the season. Overall, between Double-A and Triple-A, Westburg is batting .253 with 85 RBIs. The 30th overall pick in 2020, he is also close to his MLB debut. P.S. In MLB, it was quite a night for Mississippi Braves alums. Rookie Spencer Strider set a franchise record with 16 strikeouts in a dominating performance during Atlanta’s 3-0 win vs. Colorado; Austin Riley hit his 33rd homer for the Braves, and rookie Michael Harris II hit his 14th. Joey Meneses, up after 10 years in the minors, hit a walk-off homer for Washington to cap a four-hit game and is batting .354 with seven homers in 25 games. In that same game, a 7-5 Nationals win, 2021 M-Braves star Shea Langeliers hit his third homer and drove in three runs for Oakland.

01 Sep

when september begins

September call-ups aren’t what they used to be. MLB teams can add only two players to their active roster starting today, not the dozen or so — a lot of them rookies — that many used to bring up for the final month. That’s a shame in a way. A lot of careers were launched by young players who got a chance as a September addition. A handful of Mississippi products have debuted on Sept. 1 over the years. To wit: Luther Hackman, the big right-hander out of Columbus, started and went six innings, allowing five runs, for Colorado in 1999. The next year, former Mississippi State star Matt Ginter debuted for the Chicago White Sox with a scoreless inning. Nettleton’s Bill Hall got the call in 2002 from Milwaukee and went 0-for-1 as a pinch hitter. Fred Lewis, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College product from Hattiesburg, smacked an RBI double (off Rich Hill) as a pinch hitter for San Francisco. And in 2010, Itawamba CC alum Desmond Jennings started in center field and went 0-for-3 for Tampa Bay. … Among today’s call-ups is 31-year-old Billy Hamilton, the former Taylorsville High standout who was added by Minnesota. The Twins are the 11th different big league club he has signed with since 2018, his third this year. Hamilton, an intriguing September call-up by Cincinnati back in 2013, is a .239 career hitter, but he can steals bases — he’s the all-time Mississippi-born leader — and play center field with the best of ’em.