Mike Christensen, Author at All Mississippi Baseball

20 Feb

eye on …

Frierson Field, Clinton. William Carey University and Mississippi College, both off to good starts, renew their rivalry today. For the NCAA Division II Choctaws (7-3), Wesley Sides is on a jaw-dropping tear, batting .552 with six homers and 15 RBIs. MC has two other hitters, Cole Drake and J.T. Vance, with four homers each. And Caleb Reese, who has three bombs, is sitting on 35 career homers, tied for second on the school’s all-time list. (Richey Hines is No. 1 on that chart with 57. Yes, 57.) MC’s staff ERA is a tad troubling: 5.89. NAIA Carey (7-3) has been sparked offensively by Braydon Coffey at .462 and R.J. Stinson at .382. The Crusaders have just three homers as a team but do sport a 3.74 ERA. Closer John Snyder has five saves. … MC leads the series 6-2, per Carey’s website. Carey leads 14-9, per MC’s. P.S. Former Mississippi State star Brandon Woodruff, who is unlikely to pitch this season after shoulder surgery, has re-signed with Milwaukee, a two-year deal. The former All-Star is 46-26 with a 3.10 ERA for his career.

17 Feb

opening acts

Shout-outs to some standouts from Opening Day in NCAA Division I:
Ethan Lege: The senior outfielder went 3-for-6 with a run and two RBIs, including the go-ahead knock in the 13th inning, as Ole Miss beat Hawaii 5-4 at Murakami Stadium.
Niko Mazza: The junior right-hander out of Madison-Ridgeland Academy threw 5 1/3 shutout innings, allowing four hits and striking out eight, in Southern Miss’ 4-1 win over Marist at Taylor Park in Hattiesburg.
Bryce Chance: The junior outfielder, also an MRA product, hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the seventh inning as Mississippi State rallied past Air Force 8-4 before an announced 11,000-plus at Dudy Noble Field.
Davione Hull: The senior outfielder, from Grenada by way of Mississippi Valley State, went 1-for-3 with two RBIs, a walk and a steal in Jackson State’s 9-5 loss to Texas Southern in the Cactus Jack HBCU Classic in Houston.
Kalum Banks Jr.: The junior first baseman went 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs in Alcorn State’s 10-4 loss to Southern University in the Cactus Jack event.

15 Feb

here it comes

The wrapper comes off for NCAA Division I schools on Friday and there is great anticipation around the state as to what may be revealed in 2024. There is a new coach at Southern Miss and another at Mississippi Valley State. Star players are gone from every team, and the rosters at Ole Miss and Mississippi State, in particular, have been stocked with newcomers, many of them portal transfers. Here’s a quick look at some players to watch in the early going:
At USM, where Christian Ostrander takes over for Scott Berry as the man in charge, the key player might prove to be veteran Slade Wilks. The senior DH from Columbia hit .289 with 20 home runs and 58 RBIs for the 2023 Golden Eagles and was a Ferriss Trophy finalist. Ostrander calls him the “oak tree in that lineup.” USM, which went 46-20 last year and hosted a Super Regional (losing to Tennessee), opens at Taylor Park against Marist.
At State, where the Bulldogs return sluggers Hunter Hines (a Ferriss finalist) and Dakota Jordan, the emphasis has to be on improved pitching. Nate Dohm, 6-foot-4, 220-pound junior right-hander with strikeout stuff, figures to play a key role there. A transfer from Ball State in 2023, he went 6-4 with a 4.07 ERA in 17 appearances for a team that finished 27-26 and had an SEC-worst 7.01 ERA. Dohm and the Bulldogs start with Air Force at Dudy Noble.
At Ole Miss, where MLB draftees Jacob Gonzalez, Kemp Alderman (Ferriss Trophy winner) and Calvin Harris have moved on, the transfer portal brought in a host of newcomers. Notable among them is Luke Hill, a Baton Rouge native who played at Arizona State last season. Hill, who hit .314 with six homers and 42 RBIs as a freshman for the Sun Devils, takes over at shortstop, where Gonzalez was a three-year star. The Rebels, national champs in 2022, tumbled to 25-29 last year. They open at Hawaii.
At Jackson State, where last year’s 28-25 record and two-and-out finish in the SWAC Tournament was a disappointment, the Tigers must replace their best hitter, Ty Hill (a Ferriss finalist), and a top starter, Jesse Caver. Offensive spark could come from Myles White, a senior second baseman who batted .327 (.462 OBP), drove in 23 runs and scored 36 in 49 games. The Tigers open in the six-team Cactus Jack HBCU Classic in Houston, where they’ll play Texas Southern in their first game, Alcorn State in their second.
P.S. Alcorn, coming off an 8-40 season, opens against Southern University on Friday in the Cactus Jack event. Valley, 15-36 in 2023, will launch the C.J. Bilbrey era on Feb. 23 at Jackson State.

15 Feb

a few small details

The “preseason” is over for William Carey University and Blue Mountain Christian, NAIA schools who are already heading into Southern States Athletic Conference play. Carey, ranked No. 4 in NAIA, takes a 5-2 record into a three-game series starting today at Point University in Georgia. The Crusaders are hitting just .227 as a team, though R.J. Stinson has come out hot, batting .409 with a homer, seven RBIs and five runs. BMC is 7-1 but will face tougher opposition in a three-game set beginning Friday at Brewton-Parker in Georgia. Brewton-Parker is 7-6 overall but 5-0 at home in Mt. Vernon. For the Toppers, Arderrius Townsend is raking at .577 with three homers and 14 RBIs. Townsend, from Pontotoc, is a Northwest Mississippi Community College alum who was on Jackson State’s roster in 2023. … East Central CC, defending state and region champ, is off to an 8-0 start. Led by slugger Mo Little — who hit a dramatic ninth-inning grand slam in an extra-inning win on Tuesday — the 10th-ranked Warriors have scored 92 runs. They play Southeastern (Iowa) and Kirkland (Mo.) on Saturday in Decatur. … Hinds CC is 7-2 with six straight victories heading into a pair of games today at Meridian; the Eagles will play Northwest Florida State and 13th-ranked MCC (4-4). Lincoln Sheffield, a sophomore out of Hartfield Academy, is 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 12 innings for Hinds. … Belhaven University goes into a weekend series at Hardin-Simmons in Texas looking for new coach Andrew Gipson’s first win. The NCAA Division III Blazers went 0-3 in a round-robin event in Conway, Ark., last week.

14 Feb

going camping

Major league spring training camps are open and buzzing in Florida and Arizona. Here’s the list of Mississippians (natives and school alums) who are or soon will be in MLB camps:
40-man roster
Hitters
Nick Fortes (Ole Miss), Miami; Justin Foscue (Mississippi State), Texas; Adam Frazier (MSU), Kansas City; Grae Kessinger (UM), Houston; Nathaniel Lowe (MSU), Texas; Hunter Renfroe (MSU), Kansas City; Austin Riley (DeSoto Central HS), Atlanta; Brent Rooker (MSU), Oakland; Matt Wallner (Southern Miss), Minnesota; Jordan Westburg (MSU), Baltimore.
Pitchers
Garrett Crochet (Ocean Springs), Chicago White Sox; J.P. France (MSU), Houston; Kendall Graveman (MSU), Houston (injured); Dakota Hudson (MSU), Colorado; Lance Lynn (UM), St. Louis; James McArthur (UM), Kansas City; Michael Rucker (Columbus), Philadelphia; Nick Sandlin (USM), Cleveland; Ethan Small (MSU), San Francisco; Justin Steele (Lucedale), Chicago Cubs; Chris Stratton (MSU), Kansas City; Spencer Turnbull (Madison Central HS), Philadelphia; Colby White (MSU), Tampa Bay.
Non-roster invitees
Hitters
Blaine Crim (Mississippi College), Texas; Colt Keith (Biloxi HS), Detroit; Jake Mangum (MSU), Tampa Bay; Chuckie Robinson (USM), Chicago White Sox; Errol Robinson (UM), Baltimore.
Pitchers
Jonathan Holder (MSU) Texas; Zac Houston (MSU), Tampa Bay; Konnor Pilkington (MSU), Arizona; Drew Pomeranz (UM), Los Angeles Angels; Chad Smith (UM), New York Mets; Jacob Waguespack (UM), Tampa Bay; Hurston Waldrep (USM), Atlanta; Will Warren (Jackson Prep), New York Yankees.
Current free agents
Hitters: Tim Anderson (East Central CC); Corey Dickerson (Meridian CC); Billy Hamilton (Taylorsville); Pitchers: Mike Mayers (UM); Brandon Woodruff (MSU).

13 Feb

minor matters

Former Petal High star Anthony Alford and ex-Ole Miss standout Drew Pomeranz have found new teams for 2024, Alford signing a minor league contract with Cincinnati and Pomeranz agreeing to a minor league deal with the Los Angeles Angels, per reports. … Alford, a 29-year-old outfielder, spent the last two seasons in the Korean Baseball Organization, batting .288 with 29 homers overall. He hit .209 over scattered parts of six MLB campaigns, including two games with Pittsburgh in 2022. He was a third-round draft pick out of Petal by Toronto in 2013, but his baseball career went on the back burner while he played football at Southern Miss and Ole Miss. Alford did not receive an invitation to the Reds’ big league camp in Arizona, according to redlegnation.com, but surely will get a look there. … Pomeranz, 35, who has been injured much of the last two years, reportedly will get a non-roster invite to the Angels’ Arizona camp. The tall left-hander has appeared in 289 MLB games, posted a 3.91 ERA, won a World Series ring and earned an All-Star game nod. A former fifth overall draftee (2010), he had a 1.75 ERA with San Diego in 2021. His four-year, $34 million contract with the Padres expired after last season.

12 Feb

strong start

Power bats are in no short supply in the Mississippi junior college circuit. It’s early — yes, very early — in the 2024 season, but there are three MACCC products in the top eight in NJCAA Division II in home runs. Evan Radford is tied for the lead with five, and Dom Jackson and Hollis Porter have hit four each. Radford, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound sophomore, is batting .450 with 13 RBIs for East Mississippi CC. A transfer from Southern Miss, he hit 12 homers for the Lions in 2023. Mississippi Gulf Coast CC’s Jackson, 6-3, 215, a freshman from Florida, is hitting .600 with 13 RBIs for the Bulldogs. Pearl River CC’s Porter, 6-4, 220, from Hurley by way of Mississippi State, has 10 extra base hits (1.129 slug) for the Wildcats. Four other state juco players have three homers to date: Meridian’s Cooper Chaplain, Hinds’ Thomas Marsala and East Central’s Brady McGee and Barret Rodgers.

12 Feb

opportunity knocks

A long wait is over for Spencer Turnbull. The ex-Madison Central High standout, cut loose (non-tendered) by Detroit in November, reportedly has signed with Philadelphia, a one-year, $2 million contract with incentives. Right-hander Turnbull became, on May 18, 2021, the first Mississippian (native or school alum) to throw a no-hitter in the big leagues. He was 4-2 with a 2.88 ERA when he went down with an arm injury in June of that season. Since then, he has rarely been healthy. He missed the rest of the ’21 season and all of ’22 after Tommy John surgery and posted a 7.26 ERA for the Tigers in seven games in an injury-plagued 2023 season. Now 31, Turnbull is 12-29, 4.55, in 61 career appearances. He is expected to get a crack at the Phillies’ rotation in camp — which opens in Florida on Wednesday — but more likely will start the year in Triple-A. P.S. Five players with Mississippi ties are on USA Baseball’s Golden Spikes Award preseason Watch List: Konnor Griffin of Jackson Prep; Dakota Jordan of Mississippi State; Shane Lewis, a Warren Central alum now at Troy; Braden Montgomery, a Madison Central product now at Texas A&M; and Brett Sanchez of Belhaven University. The award goes to the top amateur player in the country. Former MSU star Will Clark won it in 1985.

11 Feb

worth noting

From the Things Discovered While Looking Up Other Things file: Until fairly recently, baseball reference works listed Sam Jethroe — a Negro Leagues star of the 1940s and the National League’s rookie of the year in 1950 — as being born in 1922 in East St. Louis, Ill. At some point, additional research turned up the fact that Jethroe was actually born on Jan. 23, 1917, in Lowndes County, Miss. (Some sites say he was born in Columbus.) So, this means we can add Jethroe’s name to the impressive array of Mississippi natives who starred in the Negro Leagues before the game was integrated: Cool Papa Bell, Sam Hairston, Howard Easterling, Rufus Lewis, Luke Easter, Bob Boyd, et al. Jethroe, who died in 2001, was nicknamed “The Jet” and may have rivaled Hall of Famer Bell for pure speed. Former big league star Don Newcombe called Jethroe “the fastest human being I have ever seen,” and a Negro Leagues contemporary claimed Jethroe could “outrun the word of God,” per The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues. He was a five-time All-Star for the Cleveland (Ohio) Buckeyes in the Negro Leagues and won a title in 1945 (teaming with Jackson native Buddy Armour). Jethroe also won a minor league championship with Montreal in 1949 and became the first African-American player on the Boston Braves in 1950 at age 33. In three years with that club, he batted .261 with 98 steals and 58 homers. He played a couple of games in 1954 with Pittsburgh, then returned to the minors and later to semi-pro ball.

10 Feb

tagging up

Bradley Pelle and his Millsaps College teammates hit the ground swinging on Friday. The NCAA Division III Majors opened their season with an 8-7, 17-8 sweep at LeTourneau (Texas). Pelle went 6-for-8 with three RBIs and six runs to pace the Millsaps attack. Jim Page, a recent Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame inductee, now has 839 wins over his 36 seasons. … Elsewhere in the small college ranks: Mississippi College (4-2) blasted visiting Miles 6-0 and 21-5 Friday in Clinton. J.T. Vance drove in seven runs and Cole Drake six in Game 2. Vance, a transfer from state champion East Central Community College, leads the Division II Choctaws with a .409 average. … Delta State, which yielded 32 runs in a 1-2 start against Harding last weekend, beat host Spring Hill (Ala.) 6-0 behind Drake Fontenot’s pitching and homers by Hayden Cooper and Taylor Woodcock in the opener of a Friday twinbill. The D-II Statesmen lost Game 2 9-5. … William Carey University, ranked No. 4 in NAIA, improved to 3-2 with a 6-5 win over Talladega in Hattiesburg. Preston Ratliff’s eighth-inning sac fly was the game-winner. … NAIA Blue Mountain Christian is off to a 5-1 start, led by Chris Smith, who’s hitting .556 with eight RBIs and four runs. … Belhaven dropped a pair of one-run games (to Hendrix and Westminster) at Conway, Ark., in new coach Andrew Gipson’s debut. Noah Foster was 4-for-9 in the two games for the D-III Blazers. … Rust College, defending regular season champ in the GCAC, is 0-7 after a 17-0 loss to Jarvis Christian. Jalin Thomas, an NAIA honorable mention All-America pick last year, has not played for the Bearcats. … Tougaloo, also a GCAC member, is 0-3 heading into weekend games against Tuskegee. The Bulldogs visit Blue Mountain on Tuesday. … Southeastern Baptist (of Laurel) lost its first two games last week at Southern-New Orleans, which is playing its inaugural season. … MUW opens Feb. 16 at Huntingdon (Ala.). P.S. Third-ranked Pearl River Community College (6-1) swept Baton Rouge 10-0 and 3-0 on Friday and made ESPN’s Top 10 plays. The Wildcats’ highlighted double play was started by second baseman Jeff Ince, who made a diving stop, then fed shortstop Creek Robertson, who fired to first baseman Hollis Porter, who scooped a low throw. Ince also hit a homer Friday and Porter belted a pair.