June 18, 2024 - All Mississippi Baseball

eye on …

Patrick Lee, former William Carey University standout, took a winding road to reach affiliated baseball. Currently playing outfield — and faring well — for the Low-Class A Lakeland Flying Tigers, Lee wasn’t drafted out of high school — Resurrection Catholic in Pascagoula — or following a five-year stint at Carey, where he batted .335, stole 74 bases and played in the NAIA World Series in 2023. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound Lee got a spot in the MLB Draft League last summer and hit .279 with 29 stolen bases. The Draft League is for players hoping to catch the eye of scouts ahead of the draft, but Lee didn’t get a call last summer. This spring, he signed with Evansville in the independent Frontier League and after batting .410 in 11 games there got an offer from the Detroit Tigers. He signed on May 25. Through 16 games at Lakeland, Lee is batting .289 with a homer, 11 runs, nine steals and a .467 OBP. At 24, he is a little old for the Low-A level and might be in line for a bump to High-A soon. P.S. Willie Joe Garry Jr., a Pascagoula High product, is currently playing for Schaumberg in the Frontier League, batting .191 in five games. Garry, drafted out of ‘Goula by Minnesota in 2018, spent six years in the Twins’ system, reaching the Double-A level briefly. The 24-year-old outfielder, a career .206 batter, was hitting .132 at High-A Cedar Rapids when he was released on May 21. … Ex-Ole Miss standout Dallas Woolfolk, a Hernando native, is also on the Schaumberg roster.

around the horn

Former Ole Miss stars Jacob Gonzalez and Tim Elko are expected to take part in tonight’s minor league showcase at Birmingham’s venerable Rickwood Field. Gonzalez and Elko, prospects for the Chicago White Sox, play for the Double-A Birmingham Barons, who will wear the uniform of the Black Barons in tribute to the Negro League club that played at Rickwood decades ago. The visiting Montgomery Biscuits (Tampa Bay affiliate) will play as the Gray Sox. The game will be televised by MLB Network at 6 p.m. MLB’s Negro Leagues tribute game at Rickwood, the country’s oldest professional ballpark, between San Francisco and St. Louis is set for Thursday night. … Former Southern Miss standout Matt Wallner was named the International League player of the week (June 11-16) after going 14-for-27 (.519) with five homers, 11 RBIs and 11 runs in six games for St. Paul, Minnesota’s Triple-A club. Wallner, who hit a 481-foot homer on Sunday, has 16 bombs for the Saints and is batting .250 with 43 RBIs since the Twins sent him down in mid-April. … DeSoto Central High alum Austin Riley had two more hits in Atlanta’s 2-1 win over Detroit on Monday and is 9-for-26 (.346) with three homers and eight RBIs in his last seven games. … If the name of the Texas A&M pitcher who was mowing down Kentucky hitters Monday in the College World Series sounds familiar, it might be because Ryan Prager is the son of former Jackson Generals standout Howard Prager. The younger Prager threw 6 2/3 no-hit innings before yielding a pair of knocks in the Aggies’ 5-1 win. He is 9-1 with a 2.88 ERA. His father played first base for the Double-A Generals, a Houston affiliate, in 1991-92 and reached Triple-A in St. Louis’ system. BTW, Kentucky’s hitting coach is former Mississippi State catcher Nick Ammirati, previously an assistant at Hinds Community College and USM.