chin up

Willie Cabrera would have every reason to feel discouraged, but he’s not letting it show so far. Sent back to Double-A Mississippi last week, the 24-year-old outfielder went 1-for-4 with a pair of runs in his first game with the M-Braves on Saturday and then banged out four more hits in Sunday’s game. The scuffling M-Braves (4-6) won both against Mobile, their first two-game win streak of the young season. The California-born Cabrera, in his sixth season in the Atlanta Braves’ system, began this season at Triple-A Gwinnett, where he finished last year. He first arrived in Mississippi late in 2008 and put up very good numbers with the M-Braves in 2009 (.275, eight homers, 53 RBIs) and ’10 (.306, five homers, 37 doubles, 56 RBIs); he seemed ready and deserving of the move up. However, he wasn’t hitting much at Gwinnett, and when the Braves acquired Stefan Gartrell in a minor league trade with the Chicago White Sox last week, Cabrera was squeezed off the G-Braves’ roster. He’s a good addition to the M-Braves’ lineup, obviously, but he doesn’t really belong back here.
P.S. Tough call in picking the most impressive hitting performance by a college player on Sunday. Will Hawkins hit a pair of home runs to help Millsaps complete a two-game sweep of Southwestern and wrap up the No. 2 seed in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference West Division heading into the tournament later this week. And Kellen Bozeman hit for the cycle and drove in seven runs as Delta State won the rubber game of a big Gulf South Conference series against Arkansas Tech. The Statesmen (11-4) are now tied with Tech for second in GSC West, a game back of Harding with two GSC series remaining. … Biggest flop on Sunday? Mississippi Valley State couldn’t hold a one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth and fell to last-place Alabama A&M; in the rubber game of their SWAC series. The Delta Devils dropped three games behind first-place Alcorn State in the East Division. The Braves swept Jackson State in a three-game series that concluded Saturday.