August 4, 2025 - All Mississippi Baseball

04 Aug

there and here

Kemp Alderman, former Ole Miss star and Decatur native, has been named the Double-A Southern League’s player of the week (July 28-Aug. 3). The 2023 Ferriss Trophy winner had nine hits — two of them homers — eight RBIs and three runs for Pensacola in the Miami chain. He hit both homers on Sunday against ex-Mississippi State hurler K.C. Hunt in the Blue Wahoos’ 8-4 win over Biloxi. It’s the second time this season Alderman has won the league’s POW award. He is one of 11 Mississippians to win the top player award in various minor leagues in 2025, joining Connor Hujsak, Konnor Griffin, Blaze Jordan, Tyson Hardin, Jurrangelo Cijntje, Niko Mazza, Braden Montgomery, Rowdey Jordan, Blaine Crim and J.T. Ginn. … Cijntje, the switch-pitcher out of MSU, has been promoted to Double-A Arkansas in the Seattle system. He was 4-7 with a 4.58 ERA in 19 games at the High-Class A level in what is his first pro season. … Atlanta has placed DeSoto Central High product Austin Riley (abdominal injury) back on the 10-day injured list. Former Mississippi Braves infielder Nacho Alvarez was recalled. … Baltimore sent Houston Roth back to Triple-A Norfolk without getting the ex-UM standout into a game. He has a 2.21 ERA, four wins and two saves in 24 relief appearances between Double-A and Triple-A this season. … The Mississippi Mud Monsters, hitting the road Tuesday for a six-game, two-city trip, have revamped their roster in recent days, adding right-hander Braden Forsyth (a Magnolia Heights, Meridian Community College and Ole Miss alum); first baseman Jack Holman; LH Ben Riley Flowers (a Southern Miss product); 7-foot RH Brenton Thiels; and RH Carl Brice (Callaway High alum). RH Heath Mann was signed and then released. The independent club is 35-36, fourth place in the West Division of the Midwest Conference of the Frontier League. The regular season ends Aug. 31. Eight teams qualify for the playoffs, four from each conference, in the 18-team league. … Ole Miss alum Anthony Calarco, who had 10 hits and seven RBIs in last week’s six-game series vs. the Mud Monsters, is batting .335 with a league-best 20 homers and 92 RBIs on the year for Schaumburg, one of the FL’s best teams. He played in Oxford in 2023.

04 Aug

feel-good moment

In his fifth game since being promoted to Triple-A by Baltimore, Reed Trimble had himself a day. The Southern Miss alum from Tupelo went 3-for-5, drove in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth and scored the game-winner in Norfolk’s 10-9 victory Sunday over Memphis. A switch-hitting outfielder, the 25-year-old Trimble is batting .228 over four levels this season; he is 5-for-21 at Norfolk. Drafted 65th overall by the Orioles in 2021 — after hitting .345 with 17 homers that season at USM — Trimble has had trouble staying on the field. He has made at least six trips to the injured list and played in just 192 games over his five minor league campaigns. A .240 career hitter with 17 homers and 51 steals, he has slipped off the MLB Pipeline Top 30 prospect list in the Baltimore system. But he is getting a shot at the Triple-A level, and Sunday’s effort was certainly a feel-good moment. … Trimble upstaged former DeSoto Central High standout Blaze Jordan, who got his first hit (in his second game) for Memphis since being traded to St. Louis by Boston. P.S. And the winning pitcher of the first major league game ever played at a NASCAR track in Tennessee is: Hurston Waldrep. The USM alum and ex-Mississippi Braves standout threw 5 2/3 impressive innings for Atlanta in the 4-2 win Sunday against Cincinnati. The Speedway Classic was suspended in the first inning on Saturday night. Waldrep caught a ride in Sunday morning from Lawrenceville, Ga., where he was slated to pitch for Triple-A Gwinnett. In Bristol, he allowed just one run on three hits and two walks with four strikeouts for his first career win in his third MLB appearance. Eli White got the MVP award after hitting two homers, but what Waldrep did was just as valuable. “I’m happy to be here. It’s just been an unbelievable day,” he told mlb.com postgame. Alas, he was optioned back to Gwinnett today. The right-hander, a 2024 first-round pick (out of Florida), endured two rough MLB outings in 2024 and was 7-8 with a 4.42 ERA this year at Gwinnett, where had pitched well in his last several outings. … The Braves’ Austin Riley (DeSoto Central grad) felt abdominal pain after making a diving tag on Sunday, left the game and is likely to miss at least a couple more. … Former Mississippi College star Blaine Crim was claimed by Colorado off waivers from Texas and optioned to Triple-A Albuquerque. … Dakota Jordan, the former Ferriss Trophy winner at Mississippi State, put up a 5-for-6 with a homer for Low-Class A San Jose in a 15-7 win Sunday vs. Stockton. San Francisco’s No. 6 prospect, bucking for a promotion, is hitting .315 with 12 bombs.

04 Aug

a day at the park

It’s the 3rd of August, another sleepy, dusty, central Mississippi Sunday, and the Mississippi Mud Monsters are hosting the Schaumburg Boomers in a Frontier League doubleheader at Pearl’s Trustmark Park. … At 4:02 p.m., just before first pitch of Game 1, the crowd in the 6,000-plus seat ballpark is, uh, slim — think double digits — and the atmosphere subdued. Very. … The video board in left-center is “under repair” and displays only balls, strikes, outs and a basic linescore. … But there is music. And baseball. … Top of the first, Anthony Calarco, introduced as a former Ole Miss player, comes to the plate. The p.a. “taunts” him with the Mississippi State fight song. He rips an RBI double down the right-field line. There are cheers. … Bottom one, Brayland Skinner leads off with a double and comes in on a Travis Holt knock. … Kids behind the right-field fence can be heard razzing the Boomers right fielder. … Top second, Skinner, the Mud Monsters’ offensive catalyst, suffers an apparent leg injury tracking a fly ball. He limps off the field. … Third inning, Calarco, a hefty lefty hitter, rips another RBI hit. More cheers for the visitor. Boomers lead 2-1. … The “Chicken Dance” rings out on the p.a. after the third inning. It does little to inspire the scattered crowd. … Bottom four, the Mud-sters get two hits. But Boomers center fielder Banks Tolley — the St. Andrew’s grad — unleashes a laser to cut down Nilo Rijo at the plate. The sensational double play ends the inning. … Bottom five, the Boomers left fielder, Aaron Simmons, cuts down a runner at the plate to end that inning. Amazing. … Calarco is up in the sixth for his third at-bat. Cue the fight song. He crushes a line drive to left that clanks off Samil De La Rosa’s glove. Two batters later, Nick Podkul’s single up the middle makes it 3-1. … Bottom six, Jack Holman, recent addition to the Mississippi roster, smashes a double to the wall in center that Tolley almost reels in. A run scores, and it’s now 3-2 Schaumburg. … Some Mud-sters fans on the third-base side can be heard playfully mocking — “Rookie of the Year”-style — the anatomy of the Boomers pitcher, who has yielded only two runs. … Seventh inning: Chris Barraza replaces starter Brian Williams on the bump for Mississippi. Barraza walks four batters around a two-run hit by that man again, Calarco. … Following a much-needed visit from pitching coach Robert Carson, the former Hattiesburg High star and onetime big leaguer, Barraza fans two to end the inning. … The Mud-sters trail 5-2 going to the bottom of the final frame. … Hits by De La Rosa and Holt are squandered. A bouncer to the mound ends it. As the visitors quietly celebrate in the infield, the p.a. invites fans — who have grown in number, slightly — to have a catch on the field and stick around for Game 2. P.S. Mississippi pounds out 15 hits and rolls to a 12-6 win in the second game, the fourth game in two days between the teams. The announced attendance is 1,616.