down on the field
Mississippi Mud Monsters management is hyping it as Six Nights of Beautiful Nonsense. The upcoming homestand at Trustmark Park — which begins tonight — will have fireworks and bobbleheads, bingo and a jersey auction, $2 beer and sausage on a stick. There are also a few players capable of providing entertainment value. Pitchers Luis Devers, Brian Williams and Brandon Mitchell have strikeout stuff, and Sergio Sanchez is among the Frontier League’s best closers. Brayland Skinner is a .298 hitter who ranks among the league’s top base stealers. Travis Holt (nine homers, 16 doubles, 46 RBIs) and Victor Diaz (six homers, 11 doubles) can go deep in the spacious Pearl ballpark. And then there’s Davis Bradshaw, from just down the road in Florence. An indy ball version of MLB batting champion Luis Arraez, Bradshaw is hitting .429. The lefty hitter — who spent a chunk of time on the injured list — has struck out only nine times in 83 plate appearances over his 23 games. This is no fluke. Bradshaw batted .303 over six seasons in the Miami system, reaching the Double-A level. He hit .756 as a senior at McLaurin High in 2017 and then .442 the next season at Meridian Community College. Bradshaw doesn’t have much power or speed, but he can put bat on ball, a skill that’s never really out of style. Having recruited the likes of Bradshaw, Skinner and Devers, manager Jay Pecci did a very good job building a team from scratch. The Mud Monsters are 39-38 as the season enters the final stretch, still in sight of a playoff berth in their inaugural season. The promos are cool and all, but pay some attention to the guys down on the field.