cue the highlights

Sunday was a head-spinning day for anyone trying to keep track of all Mississippi baseball. Southern Miss partied in Biloxi after winning the C-USA championship, handing top-seeded Florida Atlantic its first shutout of the season. Pearl River Community College celebrated in Enid, Okla., after turning four hits and 11 walks into an 8-4 win over Pasco-Hernando in its opener of the NJCAA Division II World Series. Ole Miss suffered a gut-punch of a loss to Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament final at Hoover, Ala., but got some consolation in the form of an NCAA regional host bid. In Pearl, Kyle Muller, yet another Atlanta pitching prospect, threw seven shutout innings and got two hits as the Double-A Mississippi Braves beat Jacksonville. In the big leagues, Billy Hamilton drew a walk (against Jonathan Holder), stole a bag and scored the game-winning run for Kansas City; Austin Riley contributed an RBI single to Atlanta’s ninth-inning rally, which set up a 10-inning win; Brian Dozier went 3-for-5 with two RBIs for Washington; Adam Frazier had two hits, including his third home run, for Pittsburgh; Jarrod Dyson was 2-for-5 with a run and an RBI for Arizona; Hunter Renfroe had a couple hits for San Diego; and JaCoby Jones went 2-for-4, boosting his average to .202, and stole a base for Detroit. But the best individual performance of the day by far came from Brandon Woodruff, the Mississippi State product from Wheeler who threw eight near-perfect innings for Milwaukee and also got two hits and an RBI in a 9-1 win vs. Philadelphia. Woodruff, now 7-1 with a 3.22 ERA, retired the first 18 batters before Andrew Knapp hit a home run to start the seventh. That was Philly’s only hit of the game. Woodruff walked none and struck out 10 before departing. At the plate, he is now 10-for-27 (.370) with three doubles and four RBIs this season.