Tag Archives: Dodgers

22 Apr

mississippi mismatch

The Mississippi matchup of veteran left-handers at Dodger Stadium on Monday night proved to be a letdown. Well, Cliff Lee, the ex-Meridian Community College star, was brilliant for Philadelphia, but Mississippi State product Paul Maholm fizzled for Los Angeles. Lee (3-2, 3.09) went eight innings, allowed four hits and no walks and struck out 10 in the 7-0 victory. The Dodgers were blanked at home for the first time in 2014. Maholm, trying to secure a rotation spot in his first year in Dodger blue, lasted just five innings and allowed eight hits and four earned runs, including a home run to Ryan Howard. Maholm is now 0-2 with a 5.60. He also committed an error that led to a run. … Elsewhere in The Show on Monday: Corey Dickerson, another Meridian CC product now back up with Colorado, belted his first homer of the year while going 3-for-4 in the Rockies’ 8-2 win against San Francisco. Dickerson is batting .375. Former Ole Miss star Alex Presley went 3-for-4, including a triple against Felix Hernandez, as Houston beat Seattle 7-2. Presley is batting just .200 for the Astros, who picked him up on waivers from Minnesota late in the spring. Southwest Mississippi CC product Jarrod Dyson returned from the bereavement list and started in center field for Kansas City, going 0-for-1 with a sac and a run in a 4-3 loss to Cleveland. Dyson is hitting .111 in just nine at-bats. The Royals say they plan to platoon the lefty-hitting Dyson with Justin Maxwell while starting center fielder Lorenzo Cain is out with an injury. Props to ex-Mississippi Braves standout Evan Gattis on his first career walk-off homer for Atlanta, which beat Miami 4-2 in 10 innings. Still can’t figure why Gattis is batting seventh in the lineup.

23 Mar

dodger dog

Paul Maholm, the former Mississippi State Bulldogs star, made his official Los Angeles Dodgers debut on Sunday in Australia. One of three pitchers the Dodgers used in a rocky bottom of the ninth inning against Arizona, Maholm struck out the only batter he faced. L.A. held on to win 7-5 despite yielding four runs in the ninth. Veteran left-hander Maholm, cut loose by Atlanta after a 10-11, 4.41 ERA season in 2013, struggled in competition for the Dodgers’ No. 5 starter job during the first few weeks of spring training. He figures to rejoin that battle when the team returns to the States. P.S. Getting to the majors is hard, they say, but staying is even harder. Despite hitting .354 so far this spring, Meridian Community College product Corey Dickerson has not nailed down a job with the Colorado Rockies. The left-handed hitting Dickerson, 24, who had a solid rookie year in 2013, is competing for one of two available outfield jobs. Commenting on questions about his defense, Dickerson told mlb.com: “I think I’ve got a pretty good track record and I can play any position in the outfield — I have the speed and the tools to do it.” Already sent to the minors this spring were Picayune’s T.J. House by Cleveland; Ole Miss product Phillip Irwin by Pittsburgh; and Hattiesburg’s Robert Carson by the L.A. Angels (who took him off their 40-man roster). … Released on Saturday: former Mississippi Braves star Jeff Francoeur, who hit .286 with 10 RBIs for the Indians this spring.

09 Feb

california dreamin’

The opportunity is grand. Former Mississippi State standout Paul Maholm reportedly has signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, regarded by many as a favorite to win the World Series this season. Left-hander Maholm, 31 and coming off a 10-11, 4.41 ERA campaign with Atlanta, presumably will compete with Josh Beckett (and maybe others) for the No. 5 spot in the Dodgers’ rotation. LA is stacked at the top with Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Dan Haren. Maholm’s deal was just one year for $1.5 million with possible bonuses. He’ll have to earn his spot and hold on to it, which he was unable to do with the Braves, but he could hardly have wished for a better place to land.

17 Oct

october memories

Kirk Gibson’s dramatic home run in the 1988 World Series has been garnering much attention of late. The 25th anniversary of that moment, and of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ last world championship, fall in this month. Gibson’s homer came in Game 1 of the Series, which underdog LA won in a rather anticlimactic five games against Oakland. Much more compelling that October was the ’88 National League Championship Series, which fans of the New York Mets — and the Jackson Mets — remember but not fondly. The Mets, two years removed from their last world title, won 100 games in 1988 and were arguably the best team in the NL. There were 12 former Jackson Mets on the NLCS roster, and former JaxMets skipper Davey Johnson was the manager. Darryl Strawberry hit .300 in that series with a homer and six RBIs. Lenny Dykstra batted .400 (with six runs), Gregg Jefferies .333 and Wally Backman .273. Randy Myers picked up two wins working out of the bullpen, and Rick Aguilera posted a 1.29 ERA. But the Mets lost the series, which may have turned at Shea Stadium in Game 4, in which they blew a 4-2 lead in the ninth inning and lost in 12 (on a Gibson homer off Roger McDowell). That squared the series. New York won Game 6 to stay alive. But in Game 7, the Mets committed two costly errors, watched Ron Darling get KO’d in the second inning and managed just five hits off Orel Hershisher in a 6-0 defeat. That was really the last hurrah for that core group of Mets, so many of whom had passed through Smith-Wills Stadium. The team fell to 87 wins and missed the postseason in 1989, and Johnson was fired early on in 1990. Coincidentally, that was the last year of the Jackson Mets. The honeymoon that began in 1975 was over. The Smith-Wills to Shea pipeline closed. P.S. Willis Steenhuis, a fixture in Jackson-area baseball for many years, will be formally inducted into the Hinds Community College Hall of Fame today. Steenhuis was a standout pitcher for the Eagles in the late 1950s and went on to play at Mississippi College and in pro ball in the Baltimore Orioles system. He became a very successful high school coach, winning a state title at Wingfield, and remains involved in the state semi-pro organization.

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.