Tag Archives: home run

20 Aug

put it on the board

In his long-awaited debut for the Salem Red Sox on Thursday night, Blaze Jordan hit a home run. Very appropriate. The slugger from Southaven, whose long-ball exploits as a kid have been well-chronicled (see previous posts), hit one out in the ninth inning at Lynchburg for his first hit with Boston’s Low-A club. Jordan, 18, was promoted from the rookie Florida Complex League two weeks ago but had not played before Thursday, when he hit fifth as the Salem DH. Jordan batted .362 with four homers in 19 games for the FCL Red Sox this season in his pro debut. The 6-foot-2, 220-pound Jordan, a third baseman in high school, was a third-round pick in 2020 (after reclassifying at DeSoto Central to be eligible for that draft) and is currently rated Boston’s No. 9 prospect, per MLB Pipeline. The scouting report on mlb.com touts Jordan’s “impressive bat speed and strength that allow him to hit tape-measure shots without a lot of loft in his right-handed swing.”

10 Jul

walk it off

He has mashed 167 home runs in his pro career, but Friday night’s bomb was unique for Bobby Bradley. The ex-Harrison Central High star from Gulfport hit his first career walk-off homer, lifting Cleveland to a 2-1 victory against Kansas City. Bradley, 25, in his second big league season, did a modest bat flip as the line drive sailed out to right-center at Progressive Field. He was mobbed at home plate by his teammates, who were celebrating their second straight walk-off win after a nine-game skid. “Everybody was pumped up and beating me up a little bit and throwing water everywhere,” Bradley told mlb.com. “It’s awesome.” The article said it was Bradley’s first walk-off homer at any level, though it’s hard to imagine he didn’t hit one at Harrison Central. The left-handed hitting first baseman has 10 homers in 100 at-bats this season, which is an amazing ratio even for a small sample size. He has 11 in 145 MLB at-bats overall, one per 13.2 ABs. Mark McGwire’s career record is 10.6. Babe Ruth had an 11.7, Barry Bonds a 12.9. Bradley has 156 minor league homers (one every 16 ABs) since 2014, when the Indians drafted him in the third round out of high school. That’s a special kind of power. P.S. Former Mississippi State star Brandon Woodruff is slated to pitch Sunday for Milwaukee, which means he can’t pitch in Tuesday’s All-Star Game. He has been replaced on the National League roster by teammate Freddy Peralta, another Biloxi Shuckers alumnus. … Ex-Ole Miss standout Drew Pomeranz has returned to the injured list (forearm) for San Diego. Pomeranz, who missed most of May and June on the IL, has a 1.59 ERA in 18 relief outings.

02 Jul

that’s pretty cool

Mississippi will be represented by at least one state college product in the MLB All-Star Game for the sixth straight time. Adam Frazier, the Mississippi State alumnus now with Pittsburgh, was the winner in fan balloting to start at second base for the National League. It’ll be his first trip to the Midsummer Classic, and he is very deserving of the honor. The lefty-hitting Frazier, in his sixth MLB season, is batting .326 with 101 hits, four homers, 28 RBIs and 50 runs. “I don’t really love the spotlight itself. I just try to go about my business and take care of what I need to take care of,” Frazier said in an mlb.com article. “It’s pretty cool to have the support, and I’m happy for that.” This is also pretty cool: The last Pirates second baseman to start an All-Star Game was Bill Mazeroski in 1967. More Mississippians could be headed for Colorado for the July 13 game when pitchers and reserves are announced Sunday. In 2019, the last time there was an All-Star Game, Brandon Woodruff, the ex-State standout from Wheeler, went as a replacement to the National League pitching staff. He followed Mitch Moreland (2018), Zack Cozart and Corey Dickerson (2017), Drew Pomeranz (2016) and Brian Dozier and Jonathan Papelbon (2015) as recent All-Stars out of Magnolia State schools. … Former Mississippi Braves Freddie Freeman and Ronald Acuna also were voted in, as announced by MLB on Thursday. P.S. The all-Mississippi home run chase in MLB is proving to be quite interesting. DeSoto Central product Austin Riley belted his 14th on Thursday (off Jacob deGrom, no less), moving two ahead of ex-MSU star Hunter Renfroe and Bulldogs alum Nate Lowe, who hit two on Thursday to get to 12. Gulfport’s Bobby Bradley, who has only been up since June 5, has eight. Still waiting for former State standout Moreland to get it going; he’s at six. … Down in the minors, Houlka’s Tyreque Reed hit two bombs for High-A Greenville (Boston) and has 12 on the season.

28 Jun

home run tracker

Flashing the power he displayed at Oxford High and Ole Miss, Thomas Dillard hit a pair of home runs in a game for High-A Wisconsin on Sunday. One of the bombs was a reported 438-footer. Dillard enjoyed a 3-for-6 day with five RBIs in a twinbill sweep by the Timber Rattlers, a Milwaukee farm team. Dillard is batting .240 (.420 slugging) with five homers and 37 RBIs in his second pro season. The switch-hitting catcher/first baseman, Milwaukee’s No. 22 prospect, was a fifth-round pick in 2019. He hit seven homers that summer and spent 2020 at the Brewers’ alternate site. … Joe Gray Jr., another Brewers prospect, hit his 11th homer on Sunday at Low-A Carolina. That total leads the Low-A East and is tied (with Brent Rooker in Triple-A) for the most by Mississippian in the minors. Former Hattiesburg High star Gray, in his third pro season, is batting .308 with 49 RBIs, bidding for a promotion to the Wisconsin team. Two more Mississippi-connected prospects went deep in the minors Sunday: Former Itawamba Community College and Houlka High star Tyreque Reed smacked his ninth homer for High-A Greenville in Boston’s system, and Ole Miss product Tyler Keenan, a 2020 draftee, hit No. 4 for High-A Everett in Seattle’s system. And something to watch for today: Blaze Jordan, the storied slugger from DeSoto Central, is expected to make his pro debut for Boston’s Florida Complex League team. Jordan famously hit two 500-foot homers in a showcase event at age 13 and won the high school home run competition at the 2019 MLB All-Star Game.

23 Jun

that’s a blast!

Luke Easter, slugging long homers well before the Statcast era, hit a bunch of bombs that are the stuff of legend. One of those came on June 23, 1950. The Jonestown native, who was the first black Mississippian to play in the major leagues, hit a ball over the auxiliary scoreboard in Cleveland’s old Municipal Stadium and into the second deck of seats. It was estimated at 477 feet and is regarded as the longest homer ever hit at the ballpark the Indians called home until 1994. The only other player reported to have hit one over that scoreboard was Mickey Mantle, who did it 10 years later. Easter, already 34 years old in 1950, hit 28 homers for the Indians that season and finished his brief MLB career with 93. He also hit 10 official Negro League homers. … For the record, the longest Statcast-measured bomb by a Mississippi product in 2021 is Mississippi State alum Nate Lowe’s 465-footer. Hunter Renfroe hit one 453, Mitch Moreland 444 and Austin Riley and Corey Dickerson both 432.

01 Jun

behold the power

Fear the Fighting Camels? Beware the ’Noles? If power is the key to winning these days, then the teams to watch in the Starkville and Oxford Regionals, respectively, are Campbell and Florida State. Campbell (35-16) has more total home runs (65) and the best homers-per-game average (1.27) of the four teams bound for Starkville. Matthew Christian leads the Camels with 16. Campbell pitchers also have done a good job of limiting homers, having yielded just 33. Samford (35-22), which plays Mississippi State in the first round, punched its ticket to the NCAAs with two huge homers in the ninth inning of the Southern Conference title game: a game-tying shot by Towns King and a walk-off bomb by Max Pinto. Sonny DiChiara has 16 of Samford’s 64. On the flip side, Samford pitchers have given up 70 homers. Logan Tanner (team-best 16 round-trippers) and the other State sluggers may be salivating over that stat. State (40-15) sits at 60 as a team, eight more than its pitchers have allowed. Another masher of note in that regional is Virginia Commonwealth’s Tyler Locklear, who has 16 bombs. The Rams (37-14) have allowed only 37 homers. … In Oxford, where the red cup crowd really digs the long ball, Florida State (30-22) comes in with 74 homers (1.42 per game, 18th in the nation). The Seminoles’ Mat Nelson is tied for the national lead with 22. FSU opens regional play against Southern Miss (37-19), which has belted 67 bombs, led by Reed Trimble with 14. Ole Miss (41-19) has slugged 75 homers (1.25 per game), led by Kevin Graham’s 14. Tim Elko, perhaps UM’s best power source, has 13 despite missing a big chunk of time with an injury. Rebels pitchers have allowed 65 homers, a relatively high number. Notably, UM’s opening opponent, Southeast Missouri State (30-20), is a relatively power-starved team with just 37 homers. Wade Strauss hit 14 of those.

23 Apr

power surge?

The All-Mississippi Home Run Derby, major league division, might be starting to heat up after a chilly start. JaCoby Jones, the Richton High alumnus, got on the board on Thursday, hitting his first home run of the season for Detroit in a 4-2 loss to Pittsburgh. Austin Riley, the DeSoto Central product, got his first bomb for Atlanta on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Ex-Mississippi State – and Amory High – star Mitch Moreland hit his first two of 2021 on Tuesday, going deep for Oakland against Minnesota. There is a new, supposedly “deader,” ball in play this season, but it doesn’t seem to have affected former Bulldogs slugger Nate Lowe. He homered on Wednesday for Texas and leads the Magnolia State pack with five. He’s on pace for about 40. East Central Community College product Tim Anderson, not a pure slugger, has three homers in just nine games. (Mississippi Braves alum Ronald Acuna also seems to love the new ball: He leads all of MLB with seven homers.) And yet, some Mississippians seem stuck in a power outage. MSU alum Hunter Renfroe, who entered this season with 97 homers over his five MLB campaigns, has hit one to date in his first season in Boston. Ex-Meridian CC standout Corey Dickerson hasn’t gone yard yet for Miami, nor has MSU product Brent Rooker for Minnesota. Adam Frazier, another ex-Bulldogs star who averaged nine homers over the last three seasons, hasn’t cranked one out yet for Pittsburgh, though he is batting .329.

15 Oct

have some mora

Cristian Pache gave Atlanta fans something to feel good about on Wednesday night, hitting his first career big league home run in an otherwise desultory Game 3 of the National League Championship Series. The former Mississippi Braves standout may also have sent fans of the old Jackson Generals on a trip down memory lane. Pache, who had four at-bats in the regular season, became just the seventh player to hit his first career homer in the postseason and the first position player to do so since Melvin Mora in 1999. Mora, who came through Houston’s Venezuelan pipeline in the early ’90s, spent parts of two seasons with the Double-A Generals, batting .298 for the ’95 team and .286 for the ’96 club that won a Texas League title. A versatile infielder, Mora left Houston as a minor league free agent and signed with the New York Mets in 1998. He debuted in the majors in ’99 and shined in the NLCS against the Braves. In addition to hitting his first homer – off Kevin Millwood in a Game 2 loss – Mora had five other hits, drove in two runs, scored three and stole two bases as New York fell in six games. The Mets ultimately dealt Mora to Baltimore, where he blossomed into a two-time All-Star. He batted .277 with 171 homers over 13 seasons, playing until he was 39. The 21-year-old Pache, a Dominican Republic native, can only hope for a career that good, though there is much promise. He is the Braves’ top prospect, having drawn comps to Andruw Jones, and likely will be their center fielder next season. He spent parts of the ’18 and ’19 seasons with the M-Braves, hitting .274 with 12 homers in 133 games. M-Braves faithful might remember Pache’s performance from June 15, 2019, the night of Dallas Keuchel’s tuneup appearance. Pache hit a game-tying homer in the seventh inning – the final scheduled inning – and threw out a runner at the plate in the eighth. The M-Braves went on to win.

24 Sep

get it started

Though he doesn’t hit a lot of home runs, Mississippi State product Adam Frazier does have a knack for jump-starting his team’s attack. Frazier hit his ninth career leadoff homer for Pittsburgh on Wednesday night, propelling the Pirates to a 2-1 win against the Chicago Cubs and ace Kyle Hendricks. (Ke’Bryan Hayes – Hattiesburg native Charlie’s kid – followed Frazier’s homer with one of his own.) Frazier, who has 34 career homers over five MLB seasons, is third on the Pirates’ all-time chart for leadoff homers, trailing only Barry Bonds (20) and Al Martin (10). MLB’s all-time leader is Rickey Henderson with a ridiculous 81. Based on a little research in baseball-reference.com, Frazier ranks second – unofficially — among Mississippi-connected players in leadoff shots, trailing only Brian Dozier, who is sitting on the sideline at the moment with 28. Corey Dickerson, still active, has eight, same as Zack Cozart, who is not currently playing. At seven is a group that includes Seth Smith, Matt Lawton, Ellis Burks and Del Unser. Fred Lewis had five and Don Kessinger four. Jarrod Dyson and Billy Hamilton, both active, have three apiece, same as Frank White, Don Blasingame and Eric McNair.

27 Jul

‘absolutely annihilated’

If you were watching, this might seem hard to believe: According to Statcast, Austin Riley’s home run on Sunday night was just the fifth-longest by an Atlanta player since this type of data began to be collected in 2015. Former DeSoto Central star Riley’s blast, part of the Braves’ 17-hit assault in a 14-1 win against the New York Mets, was measured at 458 feet. That’s 8 feet shorter than the Braves’ best, per Statcast, a 466-footer by Ronald Acuna on May 10, 2019. Freddie Freeman has a 464-footer, Acuna a 463 and Freeman a 460. Though somehow short of the team record, Riley’s majestic homer, which struck a façade on one of CitiField’s upper decks while still rising, will no doubt stick in the memory of Braves fans. “This ball was absolutely annihilated,” said ex-Braves star Chipper Jones, who was part of the ESPN broadcast team. The 6-foot-3, 240-pound Riley, only 23, now has 19 homers in 284 big league at-bats, plus 86 bombs over parts of five minor league seasons. Yes, he needs to make more consistent contact (.225 average), but when he does barrel one up, take cover. “My God, that’s a big strong kid,” Braves manager Brian Snitker told mlb.com.