Author Archives: Mike Christensen

03 Sep

back to it

The Mississippi Braves switched on some stored energy Thursday night, bashing seven home runs in a 16-8 win at Biloxi. Playing for the first time in nine days (COVID-19 protocols and then poor field conditions), the M-Braves improved to 59-39, best record in the Double-A South. Greyson Jenista, the 9-hole hitter on Thursday, went deep three times at MGM Park. He now has 16 homers, tied with Drew Lugbauer for second on the team. Shea Langeliers, who did not homer Thursday, has 19. Wendell Rijo (15), Trey Harris (eight), Justin Dean (seven) and Braden Shewmake (11) were the others to hit one out Thursday. The M-Braves have 131 homers as a team, second in the league (to Rocket City) and 16 shy of the franchise record with 17 regular season games left. They have hit 85 of their homers on the road, 46 at Trustmark Park, a notoriously tough place to hit one out. The next home game is Tuesday. P.S. Hunter Renfroe, batting leadoff for just the second time in his six-year MLB career, led off Boston’s game at Tampa Bay on Thursday with a single, scored the first run and later drove in the second to help the Red Sox score a big 4-0 victory. Crystal Springs native Renfroe returned from a five-day bereavement leave on Tuesday and was put in the leadoff spot for the first time that night. He went 2-for-5 and is 4-for-14 since his return. His father, Todd, died last week. … Austin Riley had two hits and two RBIs in Atlanta’s funk-busting 6-5 win at Colorado. The DeSoto Central High product, generating MVP buzz, is batting .305 with 82 RBIs for the first-place Braves. … Ex-Mississippi State star Dakota Hudson, inching closer to a return to the majors, pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings for Double-A Springfield in St. Louis’ system. It was the second scoreless rehab appearance for Hudson, who had Tommy John surgery a year ago.

02 Sep

resume building

Far from the MLB playoff races, where teams are looking to next year and players are seeking to make good impressions, the Chicago Cubs met the Minnesota Twins at Target Field on Wednesday. Justin Steele, the former George County High star, made one of those good impressions. The Cubs’ rookie left-hander threw five shutout innings for his first win since shifting from the bullpen to the rotation. Relying mainly on two different fastballs, Steele allowed one hit, walked three, hit a batter and fanned three in the 3-0 victory. “I thought the fastball looked electric, to be honest with you,” Cubs manager David Ross said in an mlb.com story. Steele, who has made four starts, is 3-2 with a 3.48 ERA overall in 15 games for the fourth-place Cubs. Drafted in 2014, the 26-year-old Steele logged over 300 innings in an injury-plagued minor league journey before making his big league debut on April 12. Meanwhile, for the last-place Twins, ex-Mississippi State star Brent Rooker was a bright spot, getting the club’s only two hits, both singles. Rooker, also looking to make an impression for 2022, is batting .201 with six homers in 38 games. Former Petal High standout Anthony Alford, hoping to secure a 2022 job with Pittsburgh, hit his second homer of the season in the last-place Pirates’ loss to the Chicago White Sox. The oft-injured Alford is batting .180 in 23 games. MSU product Nate Lowe, toiling for last-place Texas, went 1-for-3 in a loss to Colorado. Lowe is batting .321 over his last 15 games and .261 with 14 homers on the season, his first with the Rangers. P.S. Mississippi State alum Will Bednar, the first Mississippian picked in this year’s draft (14th overall), made his pro debut on Monday, working a 1-2-3 inning for San Francisco’s Arizona Complex League club. … The White Sox put shortstop Tim Anderson on the injured list Wednesday with a hamstring issue; the former East Central Community College star, an MVP candidate, had missed several games recently with sore legs.

01 Sep

good, bad and ugly

Yes, it was a Clint Eastwood/spaghetti Western kinda day for Mississippians in the majors. To wit:
Good: Brandon Woodruff threw six strong innings for Milwaukee in a 6-2 win Tuesday night at San Francisco in a matchup of first-place teams. Woodruff, the ex-Mississippi State star from Wheeler, allowed five hits, three walks and one run with eight strikeouts in running his record to 9-7. He has 15 starts this season in which he has gone at least six innings and allowed one run or fewer. The win was the Brewers’ second straight against the Giants, who lead all National League clubs with an 84-48 mark. “Coming in here and winning the first two is huge against essentially the best team in baseball,” Woodruff said in an Associated Press article.
Bad: Ole Miss product Lance Lynn and former State star Mitch Moreland, both playing for postseason contenders, landed on the 10-day injured list. Lynn, who has 10 wins for the Chicago White Sox, has a knee problem but is expected to miss just one start for the first-place club. Moreland, who has struggled (.227) much of the season for Oakland, has a wrist injury (tendinitis) that had sidelined him since Aug. 26. He could be down for a while.
Ugly: Ex-State standout Kendall Graveman, facing the player he was traded for last month, gave up a grand slam that sunk Houston in a 4-0 loss to American League West rival Seattle. Capping an eight-pitch at-bat, Abraham Toro turned around a 98-mph sinker in the pivotal bottom of the eighth inning. “It’s crazy how this game, things work out and things line up …,” Mariners manager Scott Servais told mlb.com. Graveman (5-1), who retired just one of the five batters he faced, had allowed only five earned runs in 41 previous appearances (44 innings) with Seattle and then Houston. His ERA jumped to 1.79.

31 Aug

opportunity knocks

Mississippi college products Jordan Westburg, Reed Trimble and Anthony Servideo are part of what MLB Pipeline rates as the strongest farm system among major league clubs. Baltimore also has the worst record in the majors, which for the state trio could mean there is great opportunity for quick advancement. Westburg, a shortstop out of Mississippi State, was the 30th overall draft pick in 2020 and is rated the Orioles’ No. 6 prospect. He’s in Double-A. Servideo, a shortstop from Ole Miss, was picked in Round 3 in 2020 and is rated No. 27, while Southern Miss alum Trimble, a supplemental pick following Round 2 this year, checks in at No. 21. All three would appear to be at least two years away from the majors. Atlanta’s system is rated 23rd, though there are four overall top 100 prospects in the organization. Much of the Braves’ young talent already is in the big leagues. Former Smithville High right-hander Jared Johnson is No. 30 in the Braves’ chain. Milwaukee is No. 25. MSU alum Ethan Small (5), Hattiesburg’s Joe Gray, Jr. (9) and ex-UM standout Thomas Dillard (25) are ranked in the Brewers’ Top 30. P.S. MSU product J.P. France, who threw seven shutout innings (one hit, nine strikeouts) for Sugar Land last Friday, was named the Triple-A West’s pitcher of the week. France, a 2018 draftee, is 4-0 with a 2.93 ERA for Houston’s top affiliate. … Ex-Ole Miss standout Brady Feigl made his Triple-A debut Monday for Oakland’s Las Vegas club, yielding two runs with five punchouts in 4 2/3 innings. Feigl, a 2018 draftee and the A’s No. 23 prospect, was 7-7, 3.96 in Double-A. Ex-State standout Ben Bracewell, an eighth-year pro, got the save in Las Vegas’ win over Oklahoma City; he has two saves, four wins, eight holds and a 4.18 ERA for the Aviators.

30 Aug

big league chew

Boston will be without slugging outfielder Hunter Renfroe again tonight when it takes on first-place Tampa Bay in the opener of a big, four-game American League East series. Renfroe’s father and “best friend,” Todd, died from cancer last Thursday and the Crystal Springs native has been on bereavement leave since then. He had eight hits – four homers – over a seven-game stretch Aug. 17-25 and is batting .258 with 25 homers overall. Ex-Mississippi State star Renfroe was cut loose by the Rays after last season and signed as a free agent with the Red Sox. … Jarrod Dyson made his Toronto debut on Sunday, entering the game against Detroit as a pinch runner, then staying in to play center field. The Blue Jays are team No. 7 on the former Southwest Mississippi Community College standout’s career list. … Gulfport’s Bobby Bradley returned from the injured list for Cleveland over the weekend, going 2-for-9 in a series against Boston. Bradley is at .214 with 11 homers for the season with the Indians, clinging to wild card hopes in the AL. … Southern Miss alum Nick Sandlin has been on Cleveland’s 10-day IL since Aug. 12 with no clear date for a return for the rookie right-hander. He reportedly is working out in Arizona. … Though there are no reports of an injury, MSU product Mitch Moreland did not leave the bench during the last three games of Oakland’s four-game series vs. the New York Yankees. Moreland is batting .227 with 10 homers. … Ex-Taylorsville High star Billy Hamilton continued his rehab assignment at Triple-A Charlotte, going 1-for-3 Sunday. He is 3-for-19 with one stolen base in six games for the Chicago White Sox’s top affiliate. … Dakota Hudson, who had Tommy John surgery a year ago, made a rehab start for St. Louis’ Class A Palm Beach team on Saturday. The State product worked two scoreless innings, throwing 24 pitches and hitting 94 mph. … Former State star Jonathan Holder made his second rehab appearance of 2021 on Friday, yielding a homer in one inning for the Chicago Cubs’ Triple-A Iowa club.

27 Aug

zooming on

Toronto, which picked up Corey Dickerson in a trade in July, has added another McComb native to its roster. The Blue Jays claimed Jarrod Dyson off waivers today from Kansas City. Dyson, 37, nearing the sunset of a nice career, is a good outfielder who can still swipe a base. (The nickname Zoombiya still fits.) He was batting .221 with eight bags in 77 games (just 122 at-bats) for the Royals. He is a .244 career hitter with 264 steals since his MLB debut in 2010. The Blue Jays will be his seventh team since 2017. Dyson was a 50th-round draft pick out of Southwest Mississippi Community College by the Royals in 2006.

27 Aug

worth noting

Lance Lynn came in second in the American League Cy Young race in a poll of mlb.com experts. The former Ole Miss standout is 10-3 with a league-best 2.20 ERA for the first-place Chicago White Sox. Mississippi State product Brandon Woodruff (8-7, 2.38 for first-place Milwaukee) got one first-place vote in the National League voting but finished outside the top five overall. … Boston placed Crystal Springs native Hunter Renfroe on the bereavement list on Thursday. It isn’t clear when Renfroe – batting .258 with 25 homers and 77 RBIs – will return to the team. … After the cancellation of the current homestand because of COVID-19 protocols, the Mississippi Braves have only one homestand remaining: Sept. 7-12 against Montgomery. The M-Braves are 58-39, best record in the Double-A South, with 18 total regular season games left. They visit Biloxi next week. … Keep an eye on former Biloxi High standout Colt Keith, a fast-rising prospect (currently No. 12) in Detroit’s system. The state’s 2019 player of the year after moving to the Coast from Arizona, Keith was a fifth-round draft pick in 2020. A lefty-hitting third baseman, he has played at three levels in his pro debut season. He was batting .320 (.436 on-base percentage) in Low-A ball when the Tigers bumped him up to High-A West Michigan on Monday. … Ex-Ole Miss star Errol Robinson is now playing for Sioux City of the independent American Association. Robinson, drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016, was with Cincinnati’s Double-A Chattanooga club (and hitting .213) when he was released earlier this month. Robinson reached Triple-A with the Dodgers and started this year with the Reds’ Triple-A team. … Millsaps College recently broke ground on a 6,000 square foot facility for indoor hitting, pitching and fielding practice. Also as part of the $1.8 million project, space in the existing Hall Activities Center will be converted into a 1,000 square foot player lounge. “This project is an important step in the upgrade of our baseball facilities,” Jim Page, coach of the NCAA Division III Majors since 1989, said in a school release.

26 Aug

full speed ahead

Speed is the highlight tool in Jake Mangum’s bag. It was on full display Wednesday. The former Mississippi State star, playing center field for Double-A Binghamton, made three diving catches, one charging in, one going to his left and one to his right. (Check out the video on milb.com.) He also stole a base, his 12th of the season in 70 games for the New York Mets’ Double-A club, and just to show some versatility, belted his seventh home run in a 7-5 win at New Hampshire. Mangum is hitting .296 (.341 on-base percentage) with 21 doubles, four triples, 39 RBIs and 55 runs. The Flowood native was rated one of the fastest players in 2019 draft when the Mets took him – as an MSU senior – in the fourth round. Oddly enough, he has slipped off their Top 30 prospect chart. But if he keeps producing, that hardly matters. P.S. Loyd Star High alum James Beard was generally considered the fastest player in the 2019 draft, and he was picked in the fourth round, a few spots ahead of Mangum, by the Chicago White Sox. Now playing at Low-A Kannapolis, the 20-year-old Beard has nine steals and a .193 average in 63 games. … For the record, the top base-stealer among Mississippians in the minors in 2021 is Delvin Zinn, the ex-Itawamba Community College star now in the Cubs’ system. The fifth-year pro has 43 bags – 42 at High-A South Bend, one (in four attempts) in 17 games at Double-A Tennessee.

26 Aug

pitching in

Talk about your daunting tasks. Ole Miss product Chris Ellis got the ball Wednesday for his first start for his new team, the Baltimore Orioles, who happened to have lost 19 straight games. The opposing pitcher was none other than the modern-day Babe Ruth, Shohei Ohtani, who was also batting leadoff for the visiting Los Angeles Angels. So, of course, the Orioles won 10-6 in a Camden Yards slugfest. Ellis, in just his third MLB appearance, held his own. In three-plus innings, he allowed three runs. He struck out Ohtani both times he faced him. Ohtani was lifted after five innings, having allowed a career-high three homers and four runs. The O’s rallied against the L.A. bullpen. The atmosphere in the winner’s clubhouse was described as “electric.” … The honor of best pitching performance of the night by a Mississippian has to go to Brandon Woodruff. The ex-Mississippi State standout threw six shutout innings, fanning 10 and walking none, in Milwaukee’s 4-1 win vs. Cincinnati. Woodruff, now 8-7, had not won since June 29, despite pitching relatively well for the first-place Brewers. “I would say that Woodruff right there, that’s about as good of stuff as you’re going to have,” Reds manager David Bell told mlb.com. … Worthy of a shout-out also is State alum Kendall Graveman, who worked a clean inning and notched a win for Houston in its 6-5, 10-inning defeat of Kansas City. In 40 games between Seattle and Houston, Graveman is 5-0 with four holds, 10 saves (in 12 opps) and a 1.02 ERA. P.S. Jonathan Holder, out all season with a shoulder issue, may be close to making his Chicago Cubs debut. The 28-year-old reliever out of MSU made a rehab appearance at Triple-A Iowa on Wednesday.

25 Aug

hangry for a w?

Brandon Woodruff, 2021 All-Star, ranks fifth in the majors in ERA, third in WHIP, 13th in punchouts. The 6-foot-4, 243-pound, red-bearded right-hander from Wheeler can be an intimidating presence on the mound for Milwaukee. But lately, he hasn’t been himself. Woodruff is 0-3 in his last seven starts. On June 29, he was 7-4 with a 1.87 ERA. Today, as the Mississippi State product prepares to face division rival Cincinnati, he is 7-7, 2.48. In his most recent outing, he gave up six runs in five innings against St. Louis. He lasted just three innings in a laborious start before that. Both of those games were on the road. Woodruff draws Cincinnati at American Family Field in Milwaukee, where he is 3-1, 2.26. After a loss on Tuesday, the Reds are 8.5 games back of the first-place Brewers in the National League Central but are very much in the wild card hunt. It’ll be interesting to see how Woodruff performs. It’ll be interesting also to see if he gets support from the Brewers’ hitters. That’s been an issue in many of his 10 no-decisions. Key matchup for Woodruff: Joey Votto, who is batting .318 with two home runs against him.