Tag Archives: Lance Lynn

14 Jun

meanwhile, in mlb …

Yes, there is a big game in Starkville tonight, but if you can keep an eye on – or an ear tuned to – one big league game, make it Tampa Bay-Chicago White Sox (7:10 CDT) at Guaranteed Rate Field. Lance Lynn, the grizzled vet out of Ole Miss, will pitch for the White Sox against rising star Tyler Glasnow of the Rays. It’s a matchup of division leaders who own the two best records in MLB. Lynn, never better even at age 34, is 7-1 with a 1.23 ERA. He leads the American League in ERA and is fourth in WHIP (0.88). He has one complete game (nine innings) and is averaging six innings a start, admirable by today’s standards. Lynn is 111-72 career, needing one more W to tie for 499th place on all-time list. That’s no mean feat. Only one Ole Miss product has ever won more: Jeff Fassero racked up 121 wins over 16 seasons. Lynn faces quite the challenge tonight. The Rays are on a 23-5 tear with a plus-86 run differential in the stretch. But Lynn will have the full-throated support of ChiSox fans, who have taken to the big man’s emotions-on-his-sleeve personality. “I’m going to give it everything I have to help the team win,” Lynn told the Chicago Sun-Times in a recent interview. “I’ve had that since I was a little kid.”

09 Apr

according to plan

Lance Lynn and the Chicago White Sox could not have scripted it any better. In the team’s home opener, in the former Ole Miss star’s first start at Guaranteed Rate Field with his new club, Lynn threw a five-hit shutout, striking out 11 in a 6-0 win Thursday against Kansas City. He capped the performance with a punchout. “He was just nails,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said in an mlb.com story. It was the second career shutout and fourth complete game for the veteran right-hander, acquired by the White Sox from Texas in an off-season trade. The White Sox surely are thrilled with what they’ve seen from their No. 3 starter, who slots in behind Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel. Lynn, now 105-71 in his career, has not allowed a run in 13 2/3 innings this season. P.S. The White Sox placed ex-Taylorsville High standout Billy Hamilton on the injured list with a hamstring injury. He joins East Central Community College product Tim Anderson (hammy) on the 10-day IL.

08 Dec

lunch pail dude

Lance Lynn’s 104-71 career record is impressive, as is his 3.57 ERA. The ex-Ole Miss star has averaged 8.9 strikeouts per nine innings over a nine-year big league career. But perhaps the most impressive thing about the newest member of the Chicago White Sox’s rotation is his tenacity. He shows up for work and gives all he’s got. He made 13 starts for a last-place Texas team in the 60-game 2020 season, went 6-3 and averaged 6.5 innings per. On one memorable occasion, Aug. 14 at Colorado, the 33-year-old right-hander came into the Rangers’ dugout after the eighth inning, sitting at 98 pitches with a 3-2 lead, and proclaimed, “I’m finishing it.” He did, a complete-game two-hitter. From 2012-19, he made at least 29 starts each season, excepting 2016 which he missed after Tommy John surgery. Traded by the Rangers late Monday for two prospects, Lynn joins former East Central Community College standout Tim Anderson and Ocean Springs High alum Garrett Crochet on a White Sox team that could be scary good in 2021. P.S. Onetime Mississippi Braves outfielder Mel Rojas Jr. earned Korean Baseball Organization MVP honors for 2020. He hit .349 and led the league with 47 homers and 135 RBIs in 142 games for the KT Wiz. He fell five batting average points short of winning the Triple Crown. This was his fourth season in the KBO. He is reportedly looking for an MLB offer.

08 Jul

a certain symmetry

In the Texas Rangers’ final game at their former stadium, Globe Life Park, Lance Lynn beat the New York Yankees with a fairly dominating performance. It seems appropriate that the former Ole Miss standout would be picked for the first start at the Rangers’ new stadium, Globe Life Field, when their 2020 season begins on July 24. In a rehearsal for that plum assignment on Tuesday, Lynn worked six shutout innings in an intrasquad game, recording eight strikeouts and no walks while yielding just two hits. “It gets me ready for what I want to do to be ready for Opening Day and be full-go with no restrictions,” he said in an mlb.com piece. “I am right where I want to be.” In his first year with Texas in 2019, the right-hander went 16-11 with a 3.67 ERA and finished fifth in the American League Cy Young voting. At 6 feet 5, 250 pounds, he is a hard-throwing horse. He worked over 200 innings for the Rangers last year and finished fourth in the AL with 246 punchouts. A first-round supplemental draft pick by St. Louis in 2008, he left Ole Miss as the school’s all-time strikeout leader. In an eight-season MLB career – during which he has won a World Series ring and made an All-Star Game – the 33-year-old Lynn is 98-68 with a 3.59 ERA. Lynn is expected to get a couple more intrasquad starts before the July 24 main event against Colorado. “He’s in a great spot to let him hit the ground running and let him go,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward told the Dallas Morning News.

14 Nov

also receiving votes

Lance Lynn might have been an under-the-radar free agent signee by Texas last off-season, but his performance in 2019 did not go unnoticed. Former Ole Miss standout Lynn, a 16-game winner for the Rangers, finished fifth in the voting for the American League Cy Young Award won Wednesday night by Houston’s Justin Verlander. Coming off a rough 2018 campaign split between Minnesota and the New York Yankees, Lynn signed a three-year, $30 million deal with the Rangers and quickly emerged as the staff ace. In 33 starts, the 32-year-old right-hander went 16-11 with a 3.67 ERA and worked 208 1/3 innings, striking out 246 batters, fourth-most in the AL. His most memorable moment might have come in the Rangers’ final game ever at Globe Life Park on Sept. 29. Lynn went 7 1/3 for the win, holding the Yankees to two hits and punching out 10. (An aside: In the first game at that Arlington stadium in 1994, Mississippi State product Will Clark hit the first Rangers home run.) … Three former Mississippi Braves hurlers got Cy Young votes: Tampa Bay’s Charlie Morton, one of the three AL finalists, finished third and Lynn’s Texas teammate Mike Minor eighth in the AL voting, while Atlanta’s Mike Soroka was sixth in the National League tally.

22 May

heavy lifting

At 6 feet 5, 280 pounds, Lance Lynn looks like a guy who could do some heavy lifting. On Tuesday night in Arlington, Texas, the former Ole Miss star did just that, throwing 120 pitches over seven innings to carry Texas to a 5-3 victory against Seattle. Making his 200th career big league start, the 32-year-old Lynn allowed just five hits, one walk and two runs while fanning 11. He took a shutout into the seventh, and Rangers manager Chris Woodward let him work out of a jam to finish that inning. Lynn is now 6-3, 4.67 ERA, and has won four of his last five starts, going seven innings – a rarity in today’s game — in four of those appearances. “If (Woodward had) told me I was going back out for the eighth, I would have done it,” Lynn told mlb.com. “That’s just who I am … .” Gotta like that attitude. P.S. Three Mississippians went yard on Tuesday. Mississippi State product Mitch Moreland hit his 13th for Boston, ex-Southern Miss standout Brian Dozier hit No. 7 for Washington and Richton’s JaCoby Jones got his fourth for Detroit.

13 Dec

fitting the bill

Lance Lynn did not have strong numbers in 2018, but his reputation as a workhorse may have been more important to Texas, which reportedly has signed the ex-Ole Miss star to a 3-year, $30 million contract. Lynn, 31, a former first-round pick by St. Louis, signed as a free agent with Minnesota last year and was acquired by the New York Yankees in a July trade. He did not have a big impact with either club. For the season, he was 10-10 with a 4.77 ERA, far off his career results (82-57, 3.57). The Rangers are looking to fortify a thin rotation. Lynn, who missed the 2016 season following Tommy John surgery, has worked at least 156 innings in each of his six full MLB seasons and twice topped 200. Lynn joins Billy Hamilton (Kansas City) and Louis Coleman (minor league deal with Detroit) as Mississippi-connected free agents who have signed for 2019. Brian Dozier, Drew Pomeranz, Tony Sipp and Kendall Graveman are still looking. Mississippi State product Graveman’s situation is complicated by the fact that he’ll miss much of 2019 after Tommy John surgery. P.S. The Rangers took another former UM pitcher, Chris Ellis (see previous post), in the major league phase of today’s Rule 5 draft. Ellis, who was in the St. Louis system, will try to earn a spot on Texas’ 25-man roster in spring training.

15 Jun

seize the moment

Tie game, seventh inning, two outs, one on. Minnesota manager Paul Molitor decided to let starting pitcher Lance Lynn face one more Detroit batter. That batter was JaCoby Jones. It was a Mississippi baseball aficionado moment Thursday at Comerica Park. Jones, the former Mr. Baseball from Richton High, hit a 3-1 fastball from Lynn, the former Ole Miss star, over the left-field wall, sending Lynn to the dugout and the Tigers to a 3-1 win. The slumping Jones, who had fanned in his first two at-bats against Lynn, said he guessed fastball and got one. It was his fifth homer of the year; he is batting .222 with 18 RBIs in 62 games. The Tigers have resisted the urge to send Jones to the minors to work on his hitting. His defense in left field remains a plus. “And with the energy that he brings, I love the kid,” Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire, the old Jackson Met, told mlb.com. Lynn, who was 3-0 in his previous four starts and took a shutout into the seventh, fell to 4-5, 4.98 ERA. “I need to be better next time,” he told The Associated Press. P.S. With his fifth homer, Jones has caught Zack Cozart and Corey Dickerson for fourth place in the All-Mississippi Home Run Derby race, which has slowed to a crawl. Leader Tim Anderson has 11 but none since May 28. Mitch Moreland hit his 10th on June 3, same day Brian Dozier got No. 9. Cozart hasn’t gone deep since May 9, Dickerson since May 4.

10 Mar

beefing up

Minnesota just became a much more serious player in the American League Central with the reported signing of ex-Ole Miss standout Lance Lynn. The free agent right-hander reportedly has agreed to a 1-year deal in the $12 million range. Lynn is a warrior and a winner. In his time with St. Louis, he went 72-47 with a 3.38 ERA. He joins a Twins rotation that also includes Ervin Santana, Jose Berrios and Jake Odorizzi, who was jettisoned by Tampa Bay. Led primarily by the hitting of Southern Miss alum Brian Dozier, Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton, the surprising Twins won 85 games and earned a wild card berth in 2017, a year after winning just 59 games. Many projections had them contending for the postseason again this season, and that was before adding Lynn. He didn’t get the big money he was hoping for after making $7.5M last year, so it figures he’ll be motivated.

29 Sep

close the curtain

The St. Louis Cardinals’ playoff hopes ended on Thursday, and Ole Miss product Lance Lynn’s tenure with the team apparently is done, as well. “It’s not a good feeling,” Lynn told The Associated Press. The Cardinals lost 2-1 in 11 innings to what a St. Louis newspaper called the “Cubs’ scrubs.” Chicago clinched the National League Central on Wednesday and rested most of its starters. Lynn, a free agent after this season, his 10th in the Cardinals’ organization, went to the post for the 33rd time and worked five innings, allowing three hits, four walks and one run. He was saddled with his 14th no-decision. After missing 2016 following Tommy John surgery, Lynn finishes 11-8 with a 3.43 ERA. … Elsewhere on Thursday: Former Meridian Community College star Corey Dickerson went 2-for-5 with his 27th homer as Tampa Bay dealt New York a 9-6 loss that damaged the Yankees’ chances of an American League East title. They’re 3 back of Boston with three to play and can only hope to force a playoff. Mississippi State alum Jonathan Holder yielded hits to the only two batters he faced in the Rays’ pivotal seven-run fifth. … Ex-State standout Mitch Moreland’s 22nd homer was just eyewash in Boston’s 12-2 drubbing at the hands of Houston. … Milwaukee stayed alive in the NL wild card battle with a 4-3 win over Cincinnati, defying the efforts of Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton (1-for-4, 59th steal), UM alum Stuart Turner (1-for-4) and Northwest Mississippi CC product Cody Reed (one clean inning).