Tag Archives: Mets

01 Jun

dog day afternoon

In St. Louis, the day belonged to Dakota Hudson. In Cleveland, it was Konnor Pilkington’s time to shine. The former Mississippi State pitchers were brilliant on the bump Wednesday, Hudson beating San Diego with one of his best starts of the year and Pilkington shutting down Kansas City for his first big league win. Hudson (4-2) went seven innings for the Cardinals, allowing one run on four hits in a 5-2 win. At one point, the right-hander retired 18 in a row. “Exactly what we needed,” Cards manager Oliver Marmol told The Associated Press. Pilkington, a rookie making just his sixth appearance, went five innings, allowed no runs on five hits and fanned eight, including the first four batters of the game. The lefty has claimed a spot, at least temporarily, in the Guardians’ rotation. “My stuff plays,” he told the AP after the 4-0 game — and after receiving a beer shower from his teammates. P.S. Former Ole Miss pitcher and big league manager Mickey Callaway, suspended by MLB in May 2021 after allegations of sexual harassment against female media members, has been fired as manager of Acereros de Monclova in the Mexican League. The team was 16-17. Callaway managed the New York Mets in 2018-19 and was fired after posting a 163-161 record. He was working as the Los Angeles Angels’ pitching coach last year when he was handed a suspension that extended through 2022.

26 May

hits keep coming

Promoted to Triple-A on Tuesday, Jake Mangum got a hit — and a stolen base — in his first game at the new level and is 4-for-7 in two games for Syracuse in the New York Mets’ system. The former Jackson Prep and Mississippi State star hit .283 this season at Double-A Binghamton before earning the promotion. Rated the No. 22 prospect in the Mets’ organization, Mangum, 26, is a .277 career hitter with 10 homers and 39 steals in 646 at-bats over three seasons in the minors. He left State as the all-time hits leader in the SEC. “I’m a gap-to-gap hitter that still plays the game hard and plays the game fast,” he told milb.com in a story currently featured on its website. The switch-hitting center fielder said his plan for the rest of 2022 is “play every game like it’s my last.” P.S. MSU product Konnor Pilkington has been recalled by Cleveland and will start today’s game against Detroit. The left-hander has a 2.08 ERA in four big league games this season. … Former Petal High standout Anthony Alford reportedly has signed with the KT Wiz of the Korean Baseball Organization. The onetime big leaguer, cut loose by Pittsburgh earlier this season, had been playing in Triple-A in the Cleveland chain.

21 May

hot and cold

You won’t find a hotter team in pro ball than the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. Jackson native Stan Cliburn’s club in the independent Atlantic League is 21-4. After having an eight-game win streak snapped on Thursday, the Blue Crabs bounced back Friday with a 13-2 win against Long Island. Ole Miss product Braxton Lee had an RBI and scored a run in that game, and ex-Southern Miss standout Bradley Roney pitched a clean inning in relief. Forest Hill High alum Cliburn, a longtime minor league manager, was the Atlantic League’s manager of the year in 2021 and appears to have another strong team this season. The Blue Crabs lead the loop in runs and have outscored their opposition by almost 70. Lee, a Picayune native who also played at Pearl River Community College, is one of the few players on the roster with major league experience (Miami, 2018). The outfielder is batting .278 with nine RBIs, nine runs and four steals in 22 games for the Blue Crabs. Roney, who reached Triple-A in affiliated ball and spent parts of three seasons with the Double-A Mississippi Braves, has a 3.48 ERA in 11 appearances. P.S. Buck Showalter’s New York Mets still sit atop the National League East with a 26-14 record, but the ex-Mississippi State star saw ace Max Scherzer land Thursday on the injured list, where he joins fellow pitchers Jacob deGrom, Tylor Megill, Trevor May and Sean Reid-Foley. Not sure what kind of omen this might be, but the Mets were greeted Friday by a snowstorm in Colorado.

13 Mar

changing lanes

J.T. Ginn appeared to have a bright future with the New York Mets. That future, still bright, is now with Oakland. The Mets, all in on 2022, have traded former Mississippi State star Ginn and another top pitching prospect to the A’s for All-Star right-hander Chris Bassitt. The Mets gave Ginn a $2.9 million signing bonus as a second-round draft pick in 2020, not long after his sophomore year at MSU was halted by Tommy John surgery. The Brandon native made his pro debut last summer and pitched well at two levels of A-ball, flashing the form that earned him national freshman of the year honors with the Bulldogs in 2019. Ginn, 22, went 5-5 with a 3.03 ERA last year, working 92 innings with 81 strikeouts and 22 walks. He already has been slotted in as Oakland’s No. 4 prospect by MLB Pipeline, and he might make the big leagues quicker with the A’s than he would have with the Mets.

04 Mar

local flavor

Heads up, Biloxi Shuckers fans. A home-grown player appears headed that way next month. Joe Gray Jr., the ex-Hattiesburg High star, said in an mlb.com article that Double-A Biloxi is where he’s aiming to launch his 2022 season and build on the big year he had in A-ball. “That’s going to mean a lot,” Gray said of not just reaching the game’s pivotal level in his fourth pro season but playing close to home. Beset by illness and injuries in his first two seasons and shelved by the pandemic in 2020, Milwaukee’s second-round pick from 2018 broke out in 2021, batting .252 with 20 homers, 90 RBIs and 23 steals at two levels of A-ball. He also got an Arizona Fall League assignment. “So long as I’m on the field, stuff is going to happen,” Gray told mlb.com in a very interesting interview that covers his childhood on a farm in Carson (outside of Hattiesburg), why he chose baseball over football and his difficult bout with pneumonia in 2018. Minor league roster decisions are a long way off, but there is a strong chance the 21-year-old Gray, the Brewers’ No. 9 prospect, will be in center field when the Shuckers open April 8 at Pensacola. The team’s first game at MGM Park is set for April 12 against the Mississippi Braves. P.S. Madison Central alum Spencer Turnbull is throwing again and is optimistic he’ll pitch for Detroit sometime in 2022, according to a Detroit News report. Turnbull had Tommy John surgery last summer. The right-hander, 29, went 4-2 with a 2.88 ERA and tossed a no-hitter on May 18 last year. … Former Loyd Star standout James Beard was named the best defensive prospect in the Chicago White Sox system by MLB Pipeline. The speedy Beard, a center fielder, was a fourth-round pick in 2019. His bat is still a work in progress; he hit .192 with five homers and nine steals at Low-A Kannapolis in 2021. Mississippi State and Jackson Prep alum Jake Mangum (see previous post) was pegged as the top defensive prospect in the New York Mets organization.

24 Feb

firmly in the mix

There are more heralded players in the New York Mets’ minor league camp in Port St. Lucie, Fla., but Jake Mangum is commanding his share of attention. “(N)obody is going to outwork him,” Mets director of player development Kevin Howard recently told the New York Post. “He’s got a lot of natural ability.” Mangum, 25, the former Mississippi State and Jackson Prep star, had a breakout 2021 season, using a rebuilt swing to bat .285 with nine homers and 47 RBIs (plus 14 steals) at the High-A and Double-A levels. He is also an excellent defensive outfielder. Howard suggested Mangum may have been underestimated by the folks who do the prospect rankings. The switch-hitter, coming off a tremendous career at State, had a sluggish start to his pro career, batting .247 with no homers in 2019 after being drafted in the fourth round. Last season appears to have been a sea change. Mangum told the Post he is excited about having another ex-MSU star now in charge of the Mets’ big league team. “Buck Showalter is a legend,” Mangum said. “His name just speaks for itself.” P.S. Disappointing to see that John Rhys Plumlee, the ex-Oak Grove and Ole Miss two-sport star, won’t be allowed to play baseball at Central Florida this season. The NCAA denied a waiver asking that the recent transfer be immediately eligible for the spring sport. Plumlee, a highly regarded prep player, batted .224 in 60 games over a couple of seasons with the Ole Miss team.

01 Feb

fitting tribute

MLB Network did a nice tribute to former big leaguer Jeff Innis, who died Sunday at 59 from cancer. Old Jackson Mets fans will remember Innis, a skinny, sidearming right-hander who served two stints at Smith-Wills Stadium, in 1984 and again in ’86. He was humble and witty in those days — and an effective reliever for two good teams. MLBN’s Tom Verducci, who also wrote a piece for si.com about Innis, called him a “calm port in a busy storm” with the New York Mets of the late ’80s and hailed his “humility and kindness.” Other tributes from former teammates echoed those sentiments. Innis said in a 1986 interview that he was buried in the bullpen at Illinois when he decided to start throwing sidearm. Despite a low-80s fastball, he showed enough potential that the Mets drafted him in the 13th round in 1983. Innis put up a 4.25 ERA and eight saves for the Texas League champion JaxMets in 1984 and, after being bumped back to A-ball in 1985, became the closer (2.45 ERA, 25 saves) for the ’86 team that reached the TL title series. Innis was never a star during seven seasons with the big Mets, but he was a good pitcher: 3.05 ERA in 288 games. He was also a good guy who evidently touched a lot of lives.

19 Dec

it’s show-alter time

The New York Mets last won the World Series in 1986, when former Jackson Mets manager Davey Johnson and a bunch of ex-JaxMets players crushed Boston in a memorable Fall Classic. Since Johnson departed in 1990, the Mets have been through 11 managers — not including Carlos Beltran, who never managed a game — and experienced nothing but disappointment at season’s end. They finished 77-85 last season, collapsing down the stretch after leading the National League East much of the year. Division rival Atlanta went on to win the World Series. Steve Cohen, who became the Mets’ majority owner a little over a year ago, wants a winner. Now. He has thrown a lot of money at several big-name free agents, including Max Scherzer. And on Saturday, in a move that’s being widely hailed — and which he announced himself on Twitter — Cohen hired Buck Showalter to manage the club. Former Mississippi State All-America Showalter has done a lot of things as a big league manager, winning over 1,500 games in 20 seasons with four teams, claiming three manager of the year awards, making postseason appearances with three different teams. But Showalter hasn’t won a World Series, or even been in one. A ring would be the capper on a great career. Can he do it with the Mets? An ESPN article describes Showalter as “wired tight but with a sense of humor.” New York is a tough place to manage, but he’s been there with the Yankees, knows what he’s getting into. The Mets must contend with the Braves and Philadelphia in what figures to be a tough NL East in 2022 and beyond. The heat is on. Already. And for those of us who just sit back and watch, it’s going to be fun.

15 Dec

star watch

They don’t play the game to pick up personal honors such as milb.com Organization All-Star, but the recognition is cool. Jake Mangum, the former Jackson Prep and Mississippi State standout, became the latest Mississippian to make the grade when milb.com released the New York Mets’ list earlier this week. After batting .285 with nine homers, 47 RBIs and 14 steals in 2021, the lefty-hitting Mangum was named one of the Mets’ minor league all-star outfielders. Mangum is 25 and spent most of last season — his second in pro ball — at the Double-A level. He isn’t a highly rated prospect in the system, but the SEC’s all-time hits leader certainly opened eyes with his 2021 production, flashing some much-needed power. Mets farm director Jeremy Barnes hailed Mangum’s “insane bat-to-ball skill.” He’s also fast and plays a pretty good center field. … Not all of the Organization All-Stars have been released. The list of Mississippi products who’ve been named so far includes Jordan Westburg (MSU), Baltimore shortstop; Jacob Robson (MSU), Detroit outfielder; J.P. France (MSU), Houston right-hander; Nick Fortes (Ole Miss), Miami catcher; Thomas Dillard (UM), Milwaukee first baseman; Joe Gray, Jr. (Hattiesburg), Milwaukee outfielder; and Ethan Small (MSU), Milwaukee left-hander. Robson and Fortes made their MLB debuts in 2021. P.S. Atlanta’s all-star team includes several 2021 Mississippi Braves and a player whose arrival in 2022 will be greatly anticipated: Michael Harris II. The lefty-hitting outfielder, 6 feet, 195 pounds, was the Braves’ minor league player of the year and is ranked as their No. 1 prospect by Baseball America. He hit .294 with seven homers, 64 RBIs and 55 runs at High-A Rome last summer.

09 Dec

birthday boys

What do Fred Lewis and Del Unser have in common? Both played college ball in Mississippi, both got a hit in their first major league game — and both were born on this date, 36 years apart. Lewis, who turns 41, was born in Hattiesburg, played high school ball at Stone County and juco ball at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College before moving on to Southern University. Drafted in the second round in 2002 by San Francisco, the lefty-hitting outfielder played parts of seven years in the big leagues and produced at least one game that Giants fans will never forget. On May 13, 2007, Mother’s Day, in just his 17th big league game, Lewis hit for the cycle at Colorado’s Coors Field. The homer he hit that day was the first of his career, a rare feat. He would hit 26 more and finish his MLB career in 2012 with a .266 average. Unser, who turns 77, is an Illinois native who played at Mississippi State in the mid-1960s, was drafted three times while in Starkville and ultimately signed with Washington after being a first-round pick in 1966. Unser enjoyed a 15-year career with five different clubs. He pounded out 1,344 hits — good for a .258 career average — and won a World Series ring with Philadelphia in 1980, going 5-for-11 with three RBIs and four runs in that postseason. … Also born on this date: former Jackson Generals third baseman Chris Truby, now 48, who played four years in the majors. P.S. Former MSU star Buck Showalter interviewed for the New York Mets’ manager job on Wednesday and team officials were “pretty impressed,” according to the New York Post. Showalter, 65, won 1,551 games as manager of four different MLB clubs between 1992 and 2018 and was a three-time manager of the year. He last managed with Baltimore in 2018, when a gutted Orioles team finished 47-115.