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Brian Dozier will get a taste of October baseball — in the Arizona Fall League, a proving ground for major league prospects that starts its season on Tuesday. Southern Miss product Dozier, who will play for the Mesa Solar Sox, is coming off an excellent season at the high Class A and Double-A levels in the Minnesota system. An eighth-round draft pick in 2009, he hit .322 at Fort Myers and .318 (with seven homers) at New Britain this season. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound second baseman-shortstop was rated the Twins’ 30th-best prospect entering 2011 by Baseball America. He surely has moved up the ranks. If he plays well in the AFL, he should get a long look from the big league club next spring. … Among the players Atlanta is shipping to the AFL are four who could be in Mississippi in 2012: reliever Billy Bullock, catcher Christian Bethancourt, second baseman Phil Gosselin and outfielder Todd Cunningham.
P.S. Cliff Lee, who once seemed unbeatable in the playoffs, has had his aura tarnished. The former Meridian Community College star, now Philadelphia’s No. 2 starter, was knocked out in the seventh inning of Sunday’s 5-4 loss to St. Louis, leaving him 0-3 with a 7.13 ERA in his last three postseason appearances. “They got 12 hits,” Lee told mlb.com. “Anytime they do that, they’re hitting good pitches, they’re hitting bad pitches, they’re hitting.” If there is a decisive fifth game in this series, and Lee gets the call, it’ll be interesting to see how he responds.