hit parade

There are still a lot of hits in Tyreque Reed’s bat. After a year on the shelf, the Houlka native has come out swinging in the independent Frontier League, batting .371 in 32 games for the Washington Wild Things. Since coming off a stint on the injured list on July 4, Reed has banged out 29 hits in 15 games. He has two four-hit games and three three-hit games in that span. He hit his sixth homer of the season on Friday night. Even after a loss in that game, his Wild Things team — based in Washington, Pa. — has the best record (41-22) in the league. Reed established himself as a hitter of note in 2017 at Itawamba Community College when he batted a ridiculous .504 with 15 homers and 15 doubles in 141 at-bats. He was drafted by Texas in the eighth round that summer, played three years in that system, then was taken in the 2020 Rule 5 draft by Boston. A first baseman/DH, he was a ranked prospect for a time in both of those organizations and batted .268 with 64 homers in 374 games in the minors. He hit .296 with 14 homers at High-Class A Greenville in 2021 and earned a promotion to Double-A, where his production began to slip. He missed a chunk of the ’22 season and all of ’23 with injuries before becoming a free agent last fall. At 26, Reed’s window of opportunity in affiliated ball has probably closed. … Also finding a home in the Frontier League this year is Delvin Zinn, another ICC product and a former Chicago Cubs farmhand. Zinn, who stole 44 bases in one minor league season, is batting .329 with 11 steals for Evansville. P.S. Hot-hitting Kemp Alderman belted a walk-off, 11th-inning homer for Jupiter on Friday night. The ex-Ole Miss star, batting .322 in July, is at .283 with four homers and 24 RBIs for Miami’s Low-A club. The Hammerheads started three Mississippi products on Friday: Alderman in left field, former McLaurin High and Meridian CC star Davis Bradshaw at DH and Mississippi State alum Tanner Allen in right field. Alderman and Allen are both Ferriss Trophy winners.