Category Archives: Main

26 Aug

head-to-head

Detroit vs. the A’s in West Sacramento, Calif., an interdivisional game between a first-place club and a last-place one. Not a matchup that generated much excitement on the major league schedule for Monday night. Ah, but there was a matchup within the matchup that Mississippi baseball aficionados would find compelling. It wasn’t the pivotal head-to-head confrontation in the A’s stunning 7-3 win, but it was entertaining. Batting leadoff for Detroit was Colt Keith, the ex-Biloxi High star, the state’s Gatorade player of the year in 2019. Starting on the mound for the A’s was J.T. Ginn, former Brandon High star, the state’s Gatorade player of the year in 2018. Both were drafted in 2020, Keith out of high school, Ginn out of Mississippi State. Both are second-year big leaguers, but they hadn’t faced off before. The lefty-hitting Keith came in batting .261 with 11 homers and 39 RBIs, having a fine year for the Tigers (78-54), who have been in command of the American League Central most of the season. Right-hander Ginn was 2-5 with a 4.95 ERA for an A’s team that was 60-72, in the AL West cellar, 10.5 games back of the third wild card spot. Keith was a .278 hitter against right-handers, with all 11 of his homers coming against righties. Lefties were batting .339 with eight bombs against Ginn, who had yielded 10 runs in 11 2/3 innings in his previous three outings. But this matchup, on this night, belonged to Ginn. He struck out Keith on three pitches to start the game, the first of his eight K’s. In the third inning, Keith crushed a line drive foul down the right-field line on the first pitch, then popped up to left two pitches later. In the fifth — in what was still a scoreless game — the count went to 3-1 before Ginn induced a grounder to short that ended the inning. Ginn departed in the sixth; he would be charged with seven hits, a walk and three runs in 5 1/3, in line for a loss before the game suddenly turned. The crucial clash came in the seventh, when former Mississippi Braves star Shea Langeliers hit a two-out grand slam off Tigers ace Tarik Skubal that put the A’s up 6-3. The 450-foot bomb at Sutter Health Park was the 29th of the season for “Bang-eliers” and the first slam ever allowed by Skubal, the 2024 AL Cy Young winner. Skubal took the L, falling to 11-4. Ginn may have gotten a no-decision on this night, but he won the battle with Keith and his team ultimately won the war.

25 Aug

details, details …

Sunday stuff: Two more hits and RBIs for Nathaniel Lowe. That’s seven knocks in 16 at-bats with seven RBIs for the ex-Mississippi State star in six games with Boston. The Red Sox lost to the New York Yankees on Sunday and are 3-3 in Lowe’s appearances. … Two more hits, an RBI, a run, three different positions and a win for Kansas City’s Adam Frazier. The former MSU standout is hitting .295 with 14 RBIs and 12 runs in his 29 games for the wild card-chasing Royals, 19-12 since the All-Star break. … Konnor Pilkington, MSU product from Pascagoula, struck out the Philadelphia side in the seventh inning of Washington’s 3-2 loss; he has 18 punchouts in 14 2/3 innings — with a 5.52 ERA — in 16 games this season. … Blaze Jordan, DeSoto Central High product, drove in a run for Triple-A Memphis, his 16th RBI in 17 games since joining the St. Louis affiliate in a trade. He is batting just .129. … In his first week in Double-A, ex-Jackson Prep standout Konnor Griffin batted .286 with four RBIs, four runs and four steals for Pittsburgh’s Altoona club. … Former Southern Miss star Dustin Dickerson scored one run for Northwest Arkansas, but it was the game-winner in a walk-off victory by the Royals’ Double-A club. … MSU product Kamren James hit his first homer of the season and fellow Bulldogs alum Colton Ledbetter added his sixth in a win for Double-A Montgomery, a Tampa Bay affiliate. … Patrick Lee, former William Carey University star, hit his fourth homer for West Michigan, one of six bombs Detroit’s High-Class A club belted in a 16-0 win. … Luke Hill, a 2025 draftee out of Ole Miss, got three more hits and is batting .417 in seven games for Low-A Lynchburg in Cleveland’s chain. He has a homer, four RBIs, five runs and five bags. … Michael Fowler took a loss for Low-A Carolina but still has yet to yield an earned run in five appearances for the Milwaukee affiliate. He pitched for USM and the independent Mississippi Mud Monsters this season before the Brewers signed him on July 29. P.S. Fun flashback: On this date in 1995, former Jackson Mets star Gregg Jefferies hit for the cycle and ex-Jackson Generals ace Jeff Juden threw a complete game and clubbed a grand slam as Philadelphia whipped the Los Angeles Dodgers (and Hideo Nomo) 17-4.

24 Aug

touching the bases

His Boston teammates call Garrett Crochet “Beast,” and on Saturday at Yankee Stadium he showed why. The former Ocean Springs High star overpowered the New York Yankees in the Red Sox’s 12-1 victory: seven innings, five hits, one run, one walk, 11 strikeouts. The 6-foot-6, 245-pound left-hander is 14-5 with a 2.38 ERA; he is 2-0, 2.96, in three starts vs. the Yankees, all wins by Boston. He went over 200 strikeouts for the season and passed 500 for his career; he has only been a starter for two of his five seasons. While Crochet was sharp in the Red Sox’s eighth straight win over the Yanks, Jackson Prep product Will Warren was not. He was charged with five runs in four innings and fell to 7-6, 4.47. … The Milwaukee Brewers will honor the late Bob Uecker today at American Family Field. Brewers broadcaster Tim Dillard, the ex-Itawamba Community College star who pitched for the Brewers from 2008-12, said this about Uecker, aka Mr. Baseball: “He made everybody better. Whether it was with his knowledge or his wit, his storytelling, just his voice, all of it. That was his gift, and he shared it with the world.” … Matt Wallner hit his 17th homer in Minnesota’s loss on Saturday. The former Southern Miss slugger, batting just .210, has 33 extra-base knocks among his 55 hits. … Seattle has designated former Mississippi Braves shortstop Dylan Moore for assignment. With the Mariners since 2019, the versatile Moore is hitting .193 this year. … Former Atlanta Braves scout Roy Clark — responsible for the drafting of Austin Riley, Brian McCann, Jeff Francoeur, Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward and Adam Wainwright, among others — has died at age 68. … Justin Foscue, the ex-Mississippi State standout, is itching for a call-up with Texas, which has suffered a rash of injuries lately. Foscue hit his 15th homer for Triple-A Round Rock on Saturday and is batting .292 with four bombs and 17 RBIs in August. He is 3-for-51 in his brief MLB time the last two years. … The Mississippi Mud Monsters’ Frontier League playoff hopes took a hit on Saturday when Washington rallied for six runs in the bottom of the eighth inning en route to an 8-6 win. Former ICC standout Tyreque Reed hit a game-tying three-run homer in the pivotal frame, his 13th of the season for the Wild Things. … Christopher Sargent Jr. continues to put up staggering stats in the independent Pioneer League: The USM alum, who had two hits in Ogden’s win on Saturday, is batting .384 with 35 homers, 130 RBIs and 94 runs in 80 games.

23 Aug

den of thieves

Jake Mangum notched his 20th stolen base of the season on Friday, a significant milestone for the MLB rookie out of Mississippi State. He’ll surely get more before the Tampa Bay Rays’ season ends. One of the fastest players in the 2019 MLB draft, Flowood native Mangum ripped off 81 bags in his six minor league seasons. For the record, the record for steals in a season by a Mississippi native is 59, set by — no surprise here — Billy Hamilton. The state’s career steals leader, Hamilton also stole 58, 57 and 56 in different seasons but, oddly enough, never won a league stolen base crown. The only Mississippian to do that was Sam Jethroe, a Columbus native who led the National League with 35 — as a rookie — in 1950 and again in 1951 while with the Boston Braves. He was rookie of the year in 1950. According to baseball-reference.com, Starkville’s Cool Papa Bell stole 49 bases in a season (1929) in the Negro Leagues and also had a 36-steal campaign. Jarrod Dyson’s MLB-best was 36; the McComb product also had 34 one year and had three 30-steal seasons. Gee Walker, from Gulfport, was the career steals leader among Mississippians before Hamilton and Dyson blew by him; he topped out at 30 in a single season, back in 1932. In the minor leagues, Konnor Griffin has 60 steals this season, having played in three different leagues. Now the No. 1 prospect in the minors, the Jackson native was regarded as the fastest prep player in the 2024 draft. Batesville native Emaarion Boyd has 46 steals over two levels this year and swiped 56 in 2023. The record for a Mississippian in the minors? Hamilton, again. The Taylorsville product set the all-time minor league mark with 155 playing at two levels in 2012.

23 Aug

reverse course

Nobody can honestly say they saw this coming. In four games with Boston, ex-Mississippi State star Nathaniel Lowe is 3-for-10 with a homer, two doubles, four RBIs and three runs. On Friday night, he whacked a pinch-hit double in the seventh inning and scored the game’s only run as the Red Sox beat the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. He drove in two runs in Thursday’s 6-3 victory. When he was released by Washington on Aug. 14, Lowe had a .216 average; he had hit .205 with two homers in July and .091 with one in August. The Red Sox, with a need for a lefty-hitting first baseman, snapped him up, and Lowe, 30, seems reinvigorated by the move to a contending club. He is a .263 career hitter with 106 homers over seven seasons and a Silver Slugger award on his resume. “(S)o far, so good,” Boston manager Alex Cora said in an mlb.com piece. “He’s been great coming off the bench, twice, putting up good at-bats. He’s a good defender, and it seems like he’s happy.” After Friday’s win, Boston’s seventh straight over New York, the Sawx are now second and leading the Bombers by a half-game in the American League East and atop the wild card standings. Might Red Sox fans look back on the Lowe signing as a seminal moment in this season? Worth noting: The last time the Red Sox won the World Series — 2018 — they had a Mississippi State alum playing first base — Mitch Moreland. And stay tuned: Game 3 of this four-game series today matches Ocean Springs’ Garrett Crochet against Brandon’s Will Warren. The stadium should be at fever pitch. … Meanwhile, at a more subdued Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, another former MSU standout had a big night. Jake Mangum went 4-for-5 with two doubles, two RBIs, a run and a stolen base as the Tampa Bay Rays whipped St. Louis 10-6. The Jackson Prep grad, who’s also been slumping of late, boosted his average to .283 with the third four-hit game of his rookie season. He has contributed two homers, 14 doubles, 34 RBIs, 32 runs and 20 steals in 90 games for a Rays team that, at 62-67, has tumbled out of the playoff picture. P.S. Former Mississippi Braves star William Contreras hit his first career walk-off homer Friday to give Milwaukee yet another victory, its 20th in 25 games, 5-4 against San Francisco. … Snake-bit Baltimore put MSU product Jordan Westburg on the injured list again, this time with an ankle sprain. … Arizona named Tim Bogar, former Jackson Mets shortstop back in the ’80s, as its new third-base coach. … In the minors, Southern Miss alum Matthew Etzel banged out three hits and is now batting .423 with five RBIs, five runs and four steals in six games since Miami promoted him to Triple-A Jacksonville.

22 Aug

table is set

Thursday’s appetizer was good, and the metaphorical salad and dessert that will follow should be also. But the main course, to be served up Saturday at Yankee Stadium, promises to be downright delicious. Boston beat New York 6-3 Thursday night in Game 1 of a four-course series. In Game 2 tonight, the menu gives us Brayan Bello (9-6, 3.23 ERA) against three-time All-Star Max Fried (13-5, 3.26), the former Mississippi Braves standout. And on Saturday, we get a tantalizing matchup of Mississippi natives: Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet vs. Will Warren, an unsung hero in pinstripes. Knives out. Crochet, from Ocean Springs, is a big left-hander, a former first-round pick out of SEC power Tennessee with a huge contract. Warren, from Brandon, is a second-year rookie right-hander, a former eighth-round pick out of Southeastern Louisiana. Crochet is 13-5, 2.43, and a Cy Young Award contender. He beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on June 7. Warren is 7-5 with a 4.25, with six of those wins coming at Yankee Stadium, one of them vs. the Red Sox. The series will wrap up as the Sunday night ESPN game. Thursday’s opener, which drew a rowdy crowd of 47,036, was a taut affair, ultimately settled in the ninth inning when Boston’s Roman Anthony mashed a two-run homer into the right-field stands. It was the Red Sox’s sixth straight win against the Yankees. “I love playing in an atmosphere,” rookie Anthony told mlb.com. “We know the rivalry, and it was exciting.” Nathaniel Lowe, the Mississippi State product who signed with Boston on Aug. 18, drove in two runs and made a couple of nice plays with his glove. It was the veteran first baseman’s first taste of Red Sox-Yankees. “It’s like a dream come true,” Lowe told yahoo.com of moving from last-place Washington to the heat of a playoff race. “It’s so exciting to join a team that’s as promising and as talented as what we have going on here.” The second-place Yanks are a half-game ahead of the Red Sox in the American League East, and they sit 4-5 in the wild card standings. P.S. Biloxi Shuckers alum Brice Turang’s 14th homer helped Milwaukee beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1, snap a three-game skid and maintain a 7-game lead in the National League Central. Turang had nine hits, six RBIs and four runs in the Wrigley Field series as the Brewers won two of the five games. … Atlanta announced that Austin Riley had surgery for his abdominal injury, ending the season for the former DeSoto Central star. He hit .260 with 16 homers this year. … Houston, having lost closer Josh Hader for an extended period, signed Craig Kimbrel, the former M-Braves star who has been released by Atlanta and Texas this season. … In the minors, MSU alum J.P. France got the win and ex-Madison Central star Spencer Turnbull took the loss as Triple-A Sugar Land beat Iowa 5-2. France, who just came off a rehab assignment, went five innings (no earned runs) in relief and improved to 1-1 with a 5.52 ERA in his fourth appearance for Houston’s Triple-A club. Turnbull, signed by the Cubs as a free agent on July 12, is 0-5, 8.16, for the I-Cubs after yielding five runs in 4 2/3 on Thursday. … Congrats to Rick Sweet, Jackson Generals manager in 1991-92, for moving into third place on the all-time list with 2,418 minor league wins. Sweet is currently running Milwaukee’s Triple-A Nashville club in his 35th season as a skipper.

21 Aug

donde estan ahora?

Quite a few familiar names dot the rosters of the teams in the Mexican League postseason (the LMB Zone Series), which got under way Wednesday. Monterrey, which won its opener 11-2 over Dos Laredos, features former Mississippi Braves pitchers Nolan Kingham, Manny Banuelos and Chris Ellis, who also played at Ole Miss. Kingham got the win in the opener, and Ellis — the Sultanes’ closer all season — worked the ninth. Johan Camargo, who passed through Pearl en route to Atlanta, plays for Dos Laredos. M-Braves alums Drew Lugbauer and Hendrik Clementina — members of the 2021 league championship team — played for Union Laguna in a 9-3 loss to Jalisco, which suits up former M-Braves standout Mallex Smith. Smith went 0-for-3 with a walk and run for the Charros, while Lugbauer and Clementina each had a hit for the Algodoneros. M-Braves alum Rio Ruiz had a 2-for-4 game for Mexico City’s Diablos Rojos in a win against Puebla. James Hoyt, a fireballing closer for the M-Braves in 2013-14, pitches for Campeche but did not appear for the Piratas in Campeche’s loss to Oaxaca. … Bobby Bradley’s Saltillo team did not make the playoffs; the Harrison Central High product finished his season at .305 with 12 homers and 56 RBIs. Bradley has 253 homers over his 11 pro seasons, 17 bombs in MLB with Cleveland from 2019-22.

21 Aug

roller coaster

Ups and downs will happen; that’s a fact of life for a pitcher. Making adjustments and minimizing the downs are the keys to sustained success. … It was a year ago today that J.T. Ginn, in his fourth pro season, made his big league debut for Oakland and showed out, striking out the side in his first inning and working two hitless frames all told. There have been flashes of brilliance ever since from the ex-Mississippi State star but also bursts of turbulence. On Wednesday night, the 26-year-old right-hander threw four scoreless innings at the Minnesota Twins, then coughed up three hits, a walk and the lead in the fifth. He was pulled with two outs, two on and the score tied. (The A’s would go on to win 4-2 in 10 innings.) Ginn is 2-5 with a 4.95 ERA in 17 appearances (10 starts) this season. He has a 1.37 WHIP and a .264 batting average against. Since throwing six shutout innings in a win against Houston on July 27, he is 0-3 with a 7.88 ERA. The A’s, long out of playoff contention, likely will keep sending Ginn out there, hoping he can capture the promise he showed at Brandon High and MSU. He was a first-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2018 but didn’t sign, opting to go to State. The New York Mets took him in the second round in 2020 even after he had suffered an arm injury that required Tommy John surgery. He was moved to the A’s in a 2022 trade. … In mid-June, Hurston Waldrep was in the minors and on a real downer, saddled with a 5.84 ERA and a 5-5 record for Triple-A Gwinnett. A 2023 first-round pick by Atlanta, he had some early success in the low minors but floundered in a brief big league trial in 2024. Flash forward to Wednesday: The onetime Southern Miss standout threw seven shutout innings for Atlanta and got the win in a 1-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox. He is 4-0 with an 0.73 ERA and a 0.77 WHIP in four games for the Braves since his late July call-up. Somewhere back there at Gwinnett, he figured some things out and changed the arc of his season. … Michael Fowler, another USM alum, has been on quite the odyssey. The Alabama native bounced from LSU to Tulane to USM, battling injuries and doing little to distinguish himself over five college seasons. After posting a 9.39 ERA in 10 games for the Golden Eagles in 2025, the right-hander went undrafted. He signed with the independent Mississippi Mud Monsters — and apparently something clicked into place. He went 2-1 with a 1.92 ERA in seven games, striking out 15 in 9 1/3 innings, and rode that wave to a contract with the Milwaukee Brewers. In four games at Low-Class A Carolina, Fowler has not allowed a run over 3 1/3 innings, including a two-out appearance on Wednesday. He even got a brief look at Triple-A Nashville last week.

20 Aug

rise and shine

Hit? Check. RBI? Check. Stolen base? Check. Win? Check. Baseball’s No. 1 prospect, Konnor Griffin, batting second and playing shortstop, checked off several notable accomplishments in his Double-A debut on Tuesday night, helping Altoona beat Reading 6-5. He singled in his first at-bat. We shouldn’t be surprised, really. The former Jackson Prep star also got a hit in his first pro at-bat back in April and got two knocks in his first game at the High-A level in June. On the season, Griffin is now batting .331 with 16 homers, 73 RBIs, 97 runs and 60 steals. And he is only 19. “It’s just like popcorn,” Andy Fox, manager of Pittsburgh’s Double-A club, told milb.com. “People pop at different times. He’s just an early popper.” The 2024 Gatorade player of the year in Mississippi is the third recent winner of that award to reach Double-A this season, quite a testament to the caliber of high school baseball in the state. Magnolia Heights alum Cooper Pratt, the 2023 Gatorade winner and Milwaukee’s No. 3 prospect, is playing at Biloxi, while Madison Central grad Braden Montgomery, the 2021 winner and the Chicago White Sox’s No. 1 prospect, is with Birmingham in his first pro season. Of note: The 2022 Gatorade winner, Dakota Jordan (Jackson Academy), is one of the top hitters in the Low-Class A California League in the San Francisco system; a couple of injury setbacks likely have kept him from being promoted. And the 2020 winner, Blaze Jordan (DeSoto Central), is at Triple-A Memphis — at age 22 — in St. Louis’ chain. … Emaarion Boyd, an 11th-round pick out of South Panola in 2022, was promoted to Double-A Pensacola by Miami but did not play Tuesday. He was batting .235 with 43 steals in High-A; he is a .251 career hitter with 134 bags in four years, the first three in Philadelphia’s system. P.S. Jake Mangum, the ex-Jackson Prep and Mississippi State star, got a couple of hits, an RBI and a steal for Tampa Bay — but he also had to watch seven of the New York Yankees’ nine home runs sail over his head in right field at Steinbrenner Field. The Bombers, tying a franchise record for homers in a game, won 13-3. … Nathaniel Lowe hit a game-tying two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth in his second game with Boston, but the former MSU standout then watched Baltimore win 4-3 in 11 innings … Four former Mississippi Braves catchers were in big league lineups on Tuesday: Drake Baldwin (Atlanta), William Contreras (Milwaukee), Shea Langeliers (A’s) and Alex Jackson (Baltimore). Baldwin delivered the game-winning RBIs for the Braves against the Chicago White Sox, and Langeliers hit his 27th home run in an A’s victory.

19 Aug

whatever happened to …

Vantrel Reed: The Warren Central High and Hinds Community College product is playing in the MLB Draft League, a short-season independent pro loop. He is batting .285 with two homers, 10 RBIs and 12 steals in 30 games with the Williamsport Crosscutters. Reed starred for the 59-0 LSU-Shreveport team that won the NAIA World Series in May. (Also in the MLBDL are ex-Rust and Mississippi Valley State standout Dreylin Holmes and Jackson State alum Chenar Brown.)
Jacob Robson: The former Mississippi State standout, a Canada native, is now with Winnipeg in the indy American Association, where he is hitting .259 with 13 homers, 46 RBIs and 27 steals. Robson was an eighth-round draft pick out of State in 2016 by Detroit and has bounced all over the globe ever since. He got into four MLB games with the Tigers in 2021 and has also played in the Dominican Republic, Australia and the World Baseball Classic.
Will Bednar: The 14th overall pick in the 2021 draft, after helping MSU win the College World Series, the injury-plagued right-hander is at Double-A Richmond in the San Francisco system. Working only in relief this year, his ERA is 5.40 with a win, three holds and 62 strikeouts in 40 innings. He has a 1.17 ERA in six games in August. The 25-year-old has made just 81 appearances (5-11, 5.00 ERA) in his five pro seasons.
Billy Hamilton: The ex-big leaguer from Taylorsville, who’s been playing — or not playing — in the Mexican League, remains on the injured list, where the 34-year-old has resided since mid-May. He has seven steals in 10 games for Jalisco, giving the fleet-footed outfielder 850 bags in his long pro career. He swiped 326 — the record for a native Mississippian — over parts of 11 MLB campaigns, the last in 2023.
Drew Lugbauer: The former Mississippi Braves slugger — who holds the franchise career home run record with 68 over three seasons in Pearl — is now hitting bombs in the Mexican League. Currently with the Algodoneros Union Laguna, his third LMB club this season, he is batting .287 with 16 homers and 62 RBIs. All told, the 6-foot-4, 220-pound first baseman has hit 178 homers going back to his college days at Michigan (2015-17).
P.S. In his first game with Boston (see previous post), MSU alum Nathaniel Lowe drew a walk and scored a run in a 6-3 loss to Baltimore. In that game, former Bulldogs star and current Orioles third baseman Jordan Westburg, batting .375 over his last seven games, suffered an ankle injury that was initially described as “mild.”