Tag Archives: Cardinals

28 Mar

mlb roster news

Found wanting in Minnesota, Alex Presley has found a roster spot in Houston. The Astros have claimed the former Ole Miss standout off waivers and reportedly will put him on their opening day roster as a backup outfielder. Presley, a .264 career hitter, had a poor spring with the Twins and was beaten out by Aaron Hicks for the starting center field job. Presley, a left-handed hitter with some pop and some speed, is the “type of player you hope becomes available in a waiver claim,” Astros GM Jeff Luhnow told mlb.com. In other moves: Meridian Community College alumnus Corey Dickerson apparently will make the Colorado 25-man roster with the Rockies deciding to carry six outfielders. … Pascagoula’s Joey Butler, claimed by St. Louis off waivers from Texas in the off-season, was sent down by the Cardinals. … Chris Coghlan, the ex-Ole Miss star, will join Delta State alum Eli Whiteside at Triple-A Iowa; both were in the Chicago Cubs’ camp as non-roster players. … Former Pillow Academy star Louis Coleman, a key member of Kansas City’s vaunted bullpen, may start the season on the disabled list with a finger injury. … Bobby Abreu was released by Philadelphia. With Freddy Garcia having been cut by Atlanta and Lance Berkman retiring in the off-season, there are no former Jackson Generals left in the major leagues. The Astros’ old Double-A club had produced a steady stream of big leaguers starting in 1991 when Tony Eusebio was the first to go up.

19 Nov

another door opens

After spending seven years in the Arizona system and never receiving a big-league call, Ed Easley will get his next opportunity with the St. Louis Cardinals. The former Mississippi State star — a Ferriss Trophy winner and first-round pick in 2007 — has signed a minor league deal with the Cardinals and will go to spring training to compete for the backup catcher job behind Yadier Molina. Easley, who turns 28 next month, hit .334 with six home runs and 49 RBIs in Triple-A in 2013. The right-handed batter is a career .262 hitter.

27 Oct

weight for it

A year before the St. Louis Cardinals’ draft bonanza of 2009 (see Sports Illustrated, Oct. 28 issue), the team picked a stout right-hander from Ole Miss with the 39th overall selection. Lance Lynn, the career strikeout leader for the Rebels, reached the majors rather quickly, by 2011, and pitched effectively out of the bullpen for St. Louis as it won the world championship. Lynn works in a more prominent role now: He’ll start Game 4 of the World Series tonight at Busch Stadium with St. Louis holding a 2-1 edge. Lynn won 18 games for the Cardinals in 2012 but decided after a tough postseason loss to San Francisco that he needed to be stronger for longer. In the off-season, a revamped diet helped him drop some 40 pounds from his 2012 weight. Lynn reportedly weighed 239 when he checked in for spring training. He got off to a great start for the Cards, slumped after the All-Star break but bounced back to post a 2.12 ERA in September. He finished 15-10 with a 3.97 ERA and reached his goal of 200 innings (201 1/3). “I’m more flexible and I don’t have the aches and pains I’ve had in the past,” Lynn told mlb.com about the benefits of carrying less weight. Lynn, 2-1 with a 5.40 ERA this postseason, will face an aggravated Boston club tonight. Cardinals fans are hoping he is up — or should that be down? — to the task.

21 Oct

looking ahead — and back

If you are a baseball fan, you’ve got to like a World Series that features the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals, two of the game’s truly storied franchises. (And the best teams, by record, in their respective leagues this season.) This will be the fourth time the Red Sox and Cardinals have met in the Fall Classic, and two of the previous three were indeed classics in which Mississippians played significant roles. In 1967, the year of The Impossible Dream in Boston, the Cardinals took down the Red Sox in seven games behind the brilliant pitching of Bob Gibson, who won three times. McComb native Dalton Jones, an infielder for the BoSox, went 7-for-18 in that series, and the late, great George Scott was 6-for-26 with a double and a triple (but no taters or even RBIs). Scott managed one of the three hits Gibson allowed in Game 7, a 7-2 Redbirds win at Fenway Park. Back in 1946, the Cardinals and Red Sox also played a seven-game grinder, with St. Louis winning the finale, 4-3 at Sportsman’s Park, thanks to one of baseball’s historic moments. Enos Slaughter scored the game-winning run in the eighth inning, racing around from first base on a hit by Harry “The Hat” Walker, a native of Pascagoula. Walker had a great series, going 7-for-17 with three runs and six RBIs. Dave “Boo” Ferriss, the Shaw native and legendary Delta State coach, made two starts for Boston, including Game 7. He was 1-0 with a 2.03 ERA in 13 1/3 innings. He left Game 7 after 4 1/3, trailing 3-1. Boston tied the score in the top of the eighth, but Slaughter’s famous mad dash put the Cards back on top. In 2004, when Boston finally ended its 86-year curse with a World Series sweep of St. Louis, there were no Mississippians on the roster of either club. Vicksburg’s Ellis Burks, the slugging outfielder, did start that season with the BoSox, and Meridian native Jamie Brown also made a handful of pitching appearances that year. P.S. On the subject of championships, former Nettleton High star Bill Hall earned a ring with the Long Island Ducks, who won the independent Atlantic League championship. The veteran Hall, who played briefly in the Los Angeles Angels’ system this year, hit .239 with 16 homers for the Ducks.

16 Oct

tough is enough

Lance Lynn might not have been strong on Tuesday night, but he was tough. The former Ole Miss standout worked 5 1/3 innings for St. Louis and left with a lead that the Cardinals’ lights-out bullpen protected for a 4-2 win over Los Angeles in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. The Cards now lead 3-1, and Lynn owns two of the wins, having picked up the first in relief in Game 1. He wasn’t dominant on Tuesday, didn’t appear to have his best stuff. He allowed six hits, three walks and two runs. (He also buzzed Yasiel Puig, which everyone said was unintentional.) Lynn was in trouble in the second inning and again in the fourth. But he “wasn’t afraid to make tough pitches in tough situations,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny told mlb.com. He got out of the second-inning jam — two on, one out, then bases loaded with two down — by getting a pop up and strikeout. In the fourth, three LA hits produced two runs and cut into a 3-0 deficit, but Lynn, a sinkerballer, induced a double-play grounder to escape the inning. He left with the tying run on in the sixth, but it was a job well done. And it’s now the Dodgers who are in a very tough spot.