got any threes?

Mississippi Braves manager Phillip Wellman wasn’t entirely joking the other night when he said he was about to go into the clubhouse and ask for volunteers to fill the No. 3 spot in his lineup. Twenty-two games into the season, he needs a 3-hole hitter to step forward. “There isn’t an obvious choice,” he said after Saturday night’s frustrating 3-2 loss to Montgomery at Trustmark Park. “I don’t have a Brandon Jones, or a Jeff Francoeur or Brian McCann.” At the moment, Wellman does’t even have a Reid Gorecki, who filled the bill as the No. 3 hitter quite capably last summer. Wellman has tried six different players in the 3-hole, which typically is taken by a club’s best all-around hitter. Willie Cabrera hit there Saturday and went 0-for-4, failing to get a ball out of the infield and hitting into two double plays. Eric Campbell has spent the most time at No. 3, with 12 starts there. But he’s hitting just .246 without a home run. Wellman’s search continues tonight, when the M-Braves play a doubleheader against Montgomery.
P.S. Hinds Community College will host the MACJC State Tournament later this week, thanks in part to Holmes’ upset of Gulf Coast in one of the four qualifying series. As the South champion, Gulf Coast was in line to host the four-team tournament. That role now falls to Hinds, the South runner-up. The Eagles (33-15) swept Northwest in their best-of-3 over the weekend. Two other series will be settled today: Pearl River at Itawamba and Jones County at Northeast. The two South teams, playing on the road, won the series openers. The big surprise was in Fulton: ICC is ranked No. 4 in the country; PRCC is the No. 4 seed from the South.