taste of home
The Mud Monsters aren’t the only ones coming home to Mississippi today. Tyreque Reed, a Magnolia State native, is on the roster of the Washington Wild Things, who are visiting Trustmark Park this weekend for a Frontier League series. Reed, 28, who starred at Houlka High and Itawamba Community College before launching his pro career, is the Wild Things’ cleanup batter and certainly a hitter to keep an eye on this weekend. He won the FL batting title last year with a .341 average for a Washington club that posted the indy league’s best record. Currently, Reed is hitting .240 with 10 homers and 46 RBIs. In 2017 at ICC, the right-handed hitting Reed batted a ridiculous .504 with 15 homers and 15 doubles. He played in both the Texas and Boston systems in affiliated ball, batting .268 with 64 homers in 374 games and reaching the Double-A level with the Red Sox in 2021. He missed much of the ’22 and ’23 seasons with injuries. (Of note: Madison Central High alum Regi Grace began this season with Washington but is now pitching in Mexico.) Washington is 26-22, first in the FL’s Midwest Conference Central Division. The Mud Monsters, fourth in the Midwest West, are 23-25 but coming in hot, having won three straight at Evansville. Kyle Booker, a DeSoto Central product, went 3-for-5 with two RBIs in Thursday’s win and is batting .303. Travis Holt leads the club in homers and RBIs with seven and 29. P.S. Former Meridian CC standout Cliff Lee was in the news on Thursday. Zack Wheeler, named the National League’s pitcher of the month for June, became the first Philadelphia Phillies pitcher since Lee to win two monthly awards. Wheeler also won in May of 2022. Lee, one of the most underrated pitchers of recent times, won twice in 2011, going 5-0 with a sub-0.50 ERA in both June and August. The left-hander, a four-time All-Star, also won two POMs with Cleveland in 2008, when he won the Cy Young Award, and another with Seattle in 2010. He went 143-91 with a 3.52 ERA for his career. … Ex-Ole Miss star Doug Nikhazy was recalled (again) from Triple-A by Cleveland on Thursday but did not pitch. His only MLB appearance to date was his rocky debut on April 26. … Mel Rojas Jr., who played for the Mississippi Braves in 2016, has set the Korean Baseball Organization career record for homers by a foreign player. He hit No. 175 on Thursday for the KT Wiz.