star turns
Take 1: What will Gustavo Nunez do today? The Mississippi Braves infielder has had quite the weekend so far. On Friday night at Trustmark Park, he hit an inside-the-park home run — his first homer of the season — and also scored the game-winning run on a sac fly in the eighth inning. On Saturday night, Nunez hit an 11th-inning, walk-off homer. With the 6-5 win over Birmingham, the M-Braves, winners of five straight, kept a grip on first place, by a single game over Jacksonville, in the Southern League South. The win was also the M-Braves’ 77th of the year, most in a season since the team moved to Pearl in 2005. Nunez, a 26-year-old Dominican signed by Atlanta in the off-season, doesn’t typically garner a lot of attention, but he has had a good year. The switch-hitter, whose walk-off on Saturday came from the left side, is batting .302 with 29 RBIs and 43 runs in 85 games. He has played shortstop, second base and some outfield. This is his eighth pro season. … Take 2: Corey Dickerson’s dream season for Colorado continued on Saturday when he hit a game-tying homer — third deck in right field at Coors Field — in the ninth inning and then slapped a game-winning single in the 13th as the Rockies beat Miami 5-4. Meridian Community College alum Dickerson, in his second MLB season, is batting .322 with 19 homers and 61 RBIs. His homer on Saturday was just the 33rd to reach the third deck at Coors in the ballpark’s 20 seasons. “It was pretty awesome that it went that far,” Dickerson, a lefty hitter, told mlb.com. P.S. Brian Dozier, the former Southern Miss star, has scored six runs in the last two days (three games) for Minnesota to run his American League-leading total to 91. The Twins have put up 38 runs the last two days against slumping Detroit, winning two of the three games. Dozier is batting just .235 but has a .341 on-base percentage. He also has 20 homers and 20 steals, the first 20-20 season by a second baseman in Twins history.