Tag Archives: Heart and Hustle Award

04 Sep

rays on rise

Suddenly, the Tampa Bay Rays are the hottest team in the big leagues. And one of their hottest hitters is Jake Mangum, the rookie outfielder out of Mississippi State. The Rays take a six-game win streak into tonight’s home game vs. Cleveland. They’ve climbed over .500 (70-69), past the Guardians, and are tied for fifth in the American League wild card standings, just 2.5 games out of a postseason berth. “Vibes are up,” right-hander Adrian Houser, former Biloxi Shuckers ace who won his eighth game on Wednesday against Seattle, told mlb.com. Mangum’s vibe is seemingly always up. “He’s always on go,” Rays manager Kevin Cash recently told the Tampa Bay Times. “The effort is never questioned.” The Jackson Prep grad — the Rays’ Heart and Hustle Award winner for 2025 — had three hits and an RBI in Wednesday’s 9-4 win vs. the Mariners. He is hitting .483 over his last seven games, .356 over his last 15. On the season, he is at .293 with 21 stolen bases. An excellent defensive outfielder, Mangum has yet to make an error, has chalked up five assists and routinely shows up on the highlight reels with diving catches. Also making contributions for Tampa Bay is Nick Fortes, the veteran catcher out of Ole Miss. The Rays, looking to upgrade their defense, traded for him in July. He has two homers, seven RBIs and six runs in 20 games with the club. Keeping the vibes up will be a challenge for the Rays, whose remaining schedule is tough. It includes four games with Cleveland, three with the Chicago Cubs, seven with Toronto and three with Boston. All, like Tampa Bay, are chasing playoff spots.

06 Aug

numbers to crunch

4 — Hits by Brent Rooker in a 16-7 win Tuesday by the A’s over Washington in a game chock-full of crazy numbers, including 24 hits — nine for extra bases — and five walks by the visitors at Nationals Park. Former Mississippi State star Rooker hit two doubles, drove in three runs and scored three.
3 — Home runs by Shea Langeliers of the A’s in the catcher’s first career game batting leadoff. Langeliers, who powered the Double-A Mississippi Braves to a league title in 2021, went 5-for-6 and scored four times. It was his second career three-homer game, and he now has 22 bombs on the season.
4 — Walks drawn by Nathaniel Lowe in the Nationals’ humbling defeat. The MSU alum, teammates with Rooker back in 2016, went 0-for-1 and is batting .221 with a .294 OBP — far off his career numbers — in his first year with Washington.
13 — Wins this season for Garrett Crochet, who allowed two runs in seven innings as Boston beat Kansas City 6-2 for its seventh straight win. Ocean Springs native Crochet, pitching on nine days rest, is 13-4 with a 2.24 ERA in 23 starts for the surging Red Sox.
13 — Wins this season for Freddy Peralta, who went five innings for Milwaukee to subdue Atlanta 7-2. The former Biloxi Shuckers standout, 13-5 with a 3.03, helped the Brewers win their sixth straight and improve to an MLB-best 69-44.
7 — Hits and RBIs in four August games for Isaac Collins, who had two of each in Milwaukee’s win at Truist Park. The 5-foot-8, 188-pound Shuckers alum, batting .285 this season, was the National League rookie of the month for July.
5 — RBIs by Dakota Jordan in a two-homer game for Low-Class A San Jose in San Francisco’s organization. The ex-MSU star from Canton, a 2024 draftee, has 14 homers and 82 RBIs in 84 games. Coming off the IL, he is 11-for-19 with four bombs and 12 RBIs in four games in August.
1 — Save, in his first opportunity at Triple-A Omaha (Kansas City system), for Brandon Johnson. The Ole Miss product threw a scoreless 10th in a 7-6 win at Indianapolis, trimming his ERA to 6.37 in his 22nd game for the Storm Chasers. He had a 0.79 and seven saves at the Double-A level this year.
P.S. Rooker, former State standout Jake Mangum (Tampa Bay) and Shuckers alum Sal Frelick (Milwaukee) were selected as their team’s Heart and Hustle Award winners for 2025. The award honors a player who best embodies the values, spirit and tradition of the game. An overall winner will be chosen after the season.

20 Nov

watch for it

A pair of Magnolia State connections are on the roster of one of the teams in tonight’s Arizona Fall League championship game, one a familiar name, the other less so. Former Mississippi State star Justin Foscue, a first-round pick by Texas in 2020 and a top-rated prospect, is the second baseman for Surprise, which meets Mesa (6 p.m., MLB Network) for the fall league title. One of the Saguaros’ key bullpen arms is left-hander Jacques Pucheu, a Gulfport native and East Mississippi Community College alum who plays in the Cincinnati system. Foscue capped his first pro season with a good showing in the AFL, batting .257 with five homers and 15 RBIs. He is the Rangers’ No. 4 prospect (per MLB Pipeline) and could be in the big leagues very soon. Pucheu’s story is quite different. Undrafted out of Austin Peay in 2019, he played briefly in independent ball before the Reds signed him that summer. After the idle 2020 season, he worked at three levels in 2021, spending most of the season at High-A Dayton. Obviously, Reds brass liked what they saw and sent him to the AFL, where he fared quite well against more highly rated prospects, posting a 1.93 ERA in seven appearances, 14 innings. … Ex-Southern Miss standout Matt Wallner, a Minnesota prospect (No. 14), had an outstanding AFL campaign, hitting .303 with six homers and 18 RBIs for Scottsdale. The lefty-hitting outfielder played in High-A this season. P.S. Three state college products, all pitchers, were placed on 40-man protected rosters by MLB clubs on Friday: Ryan Rolison (Ole Miss) by Colorado, Konnor Pilkington (MSU) by Cleveland and James McArthur (Ole Miss) by Philadelphia. Rolison, a first-rounder in 2018, had an injury-dampened 2021 season (5.27 in 16 starts) but is the Rockies’ No. 3 prospect. … Former Mississippi Braves standout Ozzie Albies won MLB’s Heart and Hustle Award, which honors a player who best embodies the values, spirit and tradition of the game. A committee of former players makes the selection. “I don’t know anybody who has any more fun playing baseball than that kid,” Atlanta manager Brian Snitker recently told mlb.com. East Central CC alum Tim Anderson (Chicago White Sox) and former MSU star Adam Frazier (San Diego) were among the 30 nominees. … The Braves’ new 40-man additions include Drew Waters, the 2019 Southern League MVP as an M-Braves outfielder, and two members of the 2021 M-Braves Double-A South championship team, pitchers Freddy Tarnok and Brooks Wilson.