Tag Archives: Mississippi Braves

01 Sep

seizing the moment

On May 9, 2017, before a modest-sized crowd at Trustmark Park in Pearl, Ronald Acuna Jr. demonstrated the flair for the dramatic that has become a defining characteristic of the Atlanta Braves outfielder. In his first Double-A game — a big moment for every professional player — on the first pitch he saw, Acuna launched a home run over the left-field fence. He went 3-for-4 with three RBIs in that game, powering the Mississippi Braves to victory. That indelible memory bubbled up — yet again — while watching Acuna on Thursday night. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers before a huge crowd at Dodger Stadium, the 25-year-old Venezuela native hit his 30th homer of the 2023 season, becoming the first player in MLB history to have 30 homers and 60 steals in the same season. More than that, the history-making homer was a grand slam — a 429-foot bomb to left-center in the second inning that gave the Braves a four-run lead en route to a hair-raising 8-7 win over a team it might just meet again for the National League pennant. Acuna, also a superb right fielder, later came within inches of robbing Mookie Betts of one of the two home runs he hit in fueling LA’s comeback. (And, yes, Acuna got married to his longtime girlfriend hours before the game. Talk about dramatic.) With a month left in the season, Acuna is on an MVP track, batting .337 with 30 homers, 83 RBIs, 120 runs and 62 steals. … Former M-Braves Austin Riley and Michael Harris II also homered for Atlanta against Lance Lynn, the warhorse out of Ole Miss who suffered his first bad outing in six for the Dodgers since being acquired in a trade. Lynn has allowed the most homers — 37 — in the majors this season. Spencer Strider, another M-Braves alum, went six innings for Atlanta, punching out nine, to get the win, his 16th, which leads MLB. He may well be on a Cy Young Award track.

31 Aug

here, there and everywhere

Tanner Allen, the former Mississippi State All-America, is finding his groove at Double-A Pensacola, the third level he has played at this season. The lefty-hitting outfielder, a 2021 draftee by Miami, smacked his first Double-A homer on Wednesday night and is 10-for-23 (.323) in eight games for the Blue Wahoos. Overall this season, Allen is batting .275 with nine homers, 39 RBIs and eight stolen bases. … Former Pascagoula High star Willie Joe Garry Jr., who has reached Double-A in his fifth pro season, is also enjoying success at the game’s herd-cutting level. Garry, a lefty-hitting outfielder, is batting .263 for Wichita in the Minnesota system. He has four doubles, two triples, three homers, 16 RBIs, nine runs and four steals for the Wind Surge. Garry, a 2018 draftee, is still only 23. … Ex-Ole Miss standout Grae Kessinger, at Double-A Corpus Christi on a rehab assignment from Houston, delivered a two-run single in the eighth inning to boost the Hooks to a 2-1 win against Frisco. Kessinger, who made his big league debut earlier this season, is batting .194 in 19 games for the Astros. … Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton has signed a minor league contract with Tampa Bay. The MLB veteran, recently released by the Chicago White Sox (see previous post), could be a serviceable pinch runner/defensive replacement for the Rays, who are battling for an American League playoff berth. … Darius Vines became the fifth Mississippi Braves alum to debut as a starting pitcher for Atlanta this season, throwing six strong innings to notch the win at Colorado on Wednesday night. Former M-Braves Dylan Dodd, Jared Shuster, AJ Smith-Shawver and Allan Winans also debuted this year and are among the 16 different starters the Braves have used in 2023. … The Braves visit the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight for a compelling clash of National League titans, with Atlanta ace — and M-Braves alum — Spencer Strider (15-4, 3.46 ERA) facing former Ole Miss star Lance Lynn (4-0, 2.03 in five starts for LA). Of note: Lynn has allowed an MLB-worst 34 homers (six since joining the Dodgers), while the homer-happy Braves just set a franchise record for bombs in a season with 250. P.S. The U-18 version of Team USA, including Jackson Prep standout Konnor Griffin, begins play tonight (local time) against The Netherlands in the U-18 World Cup in Taipei, Taiwan. The U.S. is the defending champion. Griffin had an RBI triple and scored a run in an exhibition victory against Chinese Taipei earlier this week.

30 Aug

bat for hire

A day after being placed on waivers, Hunter Renfroe did a little personal public relations work, going 3-for-4 with a home run and four RBIs in the Los Angeles Angels’ 10-8 win at Philadelphia. The hard-luck Angels waved the white flag on 2023 on Tuesday when they placed several key veterans on waivers, hoping they might be claimed — and their remaining salary picked up — by a contending club. Ex-Mississippi State star Renfroe showed what he is capable of against the Phillies, who happen to be a contender. He belted his 19th homer, a two-run shot in the second inning, and added a two-run single as part of an eighth-inning rally. He also had a double, his 31st. The Crystal Springs native, in a bit of a slump of late, is batting .242 with 56 RBIs. With 176 career homers, he ranks seventh on the all-time list among Mississippi natives. He also plays a mean right field, having registered eight assists this year and 65 career. Renfroe signed a 1-year, $11.9 million contract with the Angels as a free agent in the off-season, joining his fifth different team in five years. Another change of uniforms might be in the offing. P.S. Darius Vines, who went 7-4 with a 3.95 ERA for the Double-A Mississippi Braves in 2022, is set to join the long list of M-Braves alums to pitch in the majors. The right-hander is scheduled to start tonight for Atlanta — at Colorado, not exactly the place you’d pick for your debut. … Hurston Waldrep, the Braves’ first-round pick in July who joined the M-Braves on Tuesday, made four starts in A-ball, last pitching on Aug. 26. On four days rest, his next start would come Thursday, when the M-Braves play Rocket City at Trustmark Park. No announcement has been made. The Southern Miss alum, drafted out of Florida, has a 1.20 ERA so far this season.

29 Aug

minor matters

Brandon Parker, former West Harrison High and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College star, will make his home debut this week for the Mississippi Braves, who are hosting Rocket City in a seven-game Southern League series at Trustmark Park. Parker, an outfielder now in his fourth pro season, is 3-for-13 since Atlanta moved him to Double-A from High-Class A Rome, where he hit .250 with five homers and 21 RBIs. As a freshman at Gulf Coast in 2018, Parker was the NJCAA Division II player of the year. He set the school home run record with 24 and batted .424 with 81 RBIs that year. The Braves drafted him in 2019. On Rocket City’s roster is former Itawamba CC and Mississippi State left-hander Houston Harding, who has a 9.48 ERA (thanks mainly to a couple of rocky outings) in 13 appearances for the Los Angeles Angels’ affiliate. The Coldwater native had a 1.32 ERA at High-A Tri-City before being promoted in late June. … Biloxi High product Colt Keith and ex-Ole Miss ace Gunnar Hoglund were named to MLB Pipeline’s Prospect Team of the Week. Keith, a top Detroit prospect, went 11-for-24 with three homers for Triple-A Toledo last week, when he was also named the International League’s player of the week. Hoglund, Oakland’s No. 19 prospect and a first-round pick (by Toronto) in 2021, threw five hitless innings with seven strikeouts in his debut for High-A Lansing. … Former Magnolia Heights Academy standout Cooper Pratt, a sixth-round pick this year by Milwaukee, helped the Brewers’ Arizona Complex League team win the league championship. Pratt, a shortstop, batted .356 for the ACL Brewers. … Former MSU pitchers Jackson Fristoe and Eric Cerantola have been promoted by their respective organizations. Fristoe moved up to Low-A Tampa in the New York Yankees’ system and Cerantola to Double-A Northwest Arkansas in the Kansas City system. … Jackson Prep’s Konnor Griffin and ex-Madison Central star Braden Montgomery, now at Texas A&M, have been ranked among the top 10 2024 major league draft prospects by MLB Pipeline. Griffin, an outfielder/pitcher, is a senior this year. Montgomery, also a two-way player, recently transferred from Stanford, where he was an All-Pac-12 performer.

29 Aug

that’s pretty big

The Texas Rangers have won 74 games this season, rapped out an MLB-best 1,226 hits and scored an American League-leading 731 runs. So when manager Bruce Bochy says that Nathaniel Lowe’s ninth-inning single on Monday was “as big a hit as we’ve had this year,” he is saying a lot. Former Mississippi State standout Lowe’s two-out, two-RBI knock gave the slumping Rangers a 4-3 lead over the New York Mets, and they held on to win for just the second time in 11 games. The Rangers, recently passed in the AL West standings by red-hot Seattle, remained a game back of the Mariners and tied with Houston. With a 3-2 lead in the ninth, Mets manager Buck Showalter, another State product from way back, elected to walk Corey Seager and load the bases ahead of Lowe. Lowe, who had previously extended his hit streak to 10 games, smacked a 2-1 pitch from Trevor Gott into right field to put Texas ahead. Lowe called it a “team win.” It was the team’s first win in 48 games this season in which they trailed after eight innings. While many of the Rangers have slumped of late, Lowe — a Silver Slugger winner in 2022 — has not. He is batting .297 over his last 15 games and is at .282 with 15 home runs and 70 RBIs for the year. P.S. In what passes as a showdown in the AL Central, first-place Minnesota beat second-place Cleveland 10-6, getting a 438-foot homer from Southern Miss alum Matt Wallner, his 10th. The Twins’ lead is 7 games. … Other than that bizarre and somewhat scary incident involving several so-called “fans,” former Mississippi Braves star Ronald Acuna enjoyed an MVP-caliber night at Colorado. Acuna went 4-for-5, hit his 29th homer, stole his 60th and 61st bases, drove in five runs and scored four to power Atlanta to a 14-4 win. No player in MLB history has hit 30 homers and swiped 60 bags in the same season.

25 Aug

notable numbers

17 — Quality starts by George County High product Justin Steele of the Chicago Cubs. The All-Star left-hander went six innings Thursday, allowing two earned runs, and propelled the Cubs to a 5-4, 10-inning win against Pittsburgh. Steele is 14-3 with a 2.80 ERA in 24 starts this season. “I want to be the guy that we rely on,” he told mlb.com.
10 — Runs allowed by ex-Mississippi State standout J.P. France, who took the loss for slumping Texas in a 17-1 defeat against Boston. Rookie France (9-5) lasted just 2 1/3 innings in his worst outing. The Rangers’ lead in the American League West is 1 game over Seattle and Houston.
55 — RBIs this season by former MSU star Brent Rooker, who belted his 22nd homer in Oakland’s 8-5 win over the White Sox. Rooker, the SEC Triple Crown winner in 2017, leads the team in homers, RBIs and batting average at .245.
117 — Hits this season by MSU product Jake Mangum, who banged out two more — including a grand slam — in Triple-A Jacksonville’s 8-4 win over Columbus. Mangum, 27, in his first year in Miami’s system, is batting .315 with five homers, 46 RBIs and 12 steals.
1 — Hit by Kellum Clark, the ex-MSU standout from Brandon, who went 1-for-4 with an RBI in his second game for the Low-Class A St. Lucie Mets.
1 — Hit by Brandon Parker, the Saucier native, West Harrison High alum and ex-Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College star who made his Double-A debut for the Mississippi Braves at Montgomery. Parker, who also drove in a run and drew a walk, is the first Mississippi high school alum to play for the M-Braves since DeSoto Central’s Austin Riley debuted on May 5, 2018, according to a team release. Parker is the first state native to play for the M-Braves since Jackson’s Zack Bird, a Murrah High alum, pitched in three games in 2015.
32 — Consecutive games reaching base by the M-Braves’ Jesse Franklin V, who homered (No. 14) and walked three times in the team’s loss to Montgomery.

22 Aug

going places

Coming soon to the Mississippi Braves’ lineup: Brandon Parker. The former Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College star from Saucier, just off the injured list, has been promoted to Double-A, though he is not starting tonight at Montgomery. A 2019 draftee by Atlanta, after winning NJCAA Division II player of the year honors at Perk, Parker was hitting .250 with five homers, 21 RBIs and 10 steals for the High-Class A Rome Braves. He has been on the injured list since July 25 and just completed a rehab assignment in rookie ball. The 6-foot, 205-pound outfielder has 26 career homers in 231 minor league games. … Parker might get a chance during the six-game series against the Biscuits to face former Mississippi State standout Colby White, whose journey back from arm surgery has led him back to Montgomery, where he spent part of the 2021 season en route to reaching Triple-A in Tampa Bay’s system. White, on the Rays’ 40-man roster, has a 1.86 career ERA in 74 minor league games since 2019. … Also moving up today is ex-MSU standout Kellum Clark, a 20th-round pick by the New York Mets in July. He was hitting .308 in rookie ball, earning a promotion to Class A St. Lucie.

17 Aug

to the rescue

On a night when ace Justin Verlander got a little wobbly, Kendall Graveman led a four-man relay team of relievers who carried home Houston’s 12-5 win against Miami. Former Mississippi State standout Graveman, rescued from the sinking Chicago White Sox at the trade deadline, has been just what the Astros wanted, posting a 2.35 ERA in seven appearances. After Verlander allowed a five-run lead to shrink to one on Wednesday night, Graveman replaced him in the sixth inning and put the Marlins down 1-2-3 on eight pitches. (None of the four Astros relievers allowed a hit.) It was Graveman’s fourth straight scoreless outing for a team that is trying to chase down Texas in the American League West. (The Rangers lost Wednesday and lead by just 2.5 games.) Graveman, a converted starter now in his ninth MLB season, is in his second stint with the Astros, who acquired him from Seattle in a deadline trade in 2021. After helping Houston reach the ’21 World Series, he went to the White Sox as a free agent. He pitched well there, racking up 14 saves and 35 holds in 110 games before the Astros, the reigning world champs, got him back. “It’s an organization that’s run very well and … (I’m) thankful that they would want me back,” he told the Houston Chronicle at the time of the trade. P.S. Charlie Morton was masterful for Atlanta in a 2-0 win against the New York Yankees, notching his 12th win of 2023 and 128th career. That total leads all former Mississippi Braves by a wide margin on the career wins list. For the record, the leader among former Jackson Generals is Freddy Garcia with 156. Kevin Tapani, with 143, is tops among ex-Jackson Mets. … Tough break for ex-Ole Miss star Justin Bench, who was hitting .354 at Low-Class A San Jose (San Francisco system) when he went on the injured list on Wednesday. A utility player who made the All-College World Series team for the ’22 champs, Bench hit .370 in rookie ball before moving up to San Jose in mid-July.

16 Aug

crowd-pleaser

Matt Wallner will strike out. He struck out three times for Minnesota on Tuesday night. Matt Wallner will also hit home runs, big ones, like the game-turning grand slam the ex-Southern Miss star stroked Tuesday night for the Twins in a 5-3 win over Detroit. “That’s not one we will forget. That was more than a nice swing,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli told mlb.com. Wallner’s 450-foot bomb to right-center field was his first career slam in the big leagues, and it earned the Minnesota native and lifelong Twins fan a curtain call from the 30,000-plus at Target Field. The win kept the first-place Twins 4.5 games ahead of Cleveland in the American League Central. Wallner said in a postgame TV interview that his swing felt terrible at the start of the night, but that changed in the sixth inning when he sent a pitch from Will Vest into the upper deck. “Just felt like I hit it about as good as I could,” the lefty-hitting outfielder said in an Associated Press article. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Wallner has struck out 36 times in 104 at-bats over 38 games for Minnesota this season. He also has belted nine homers, five in his last 15 games. Lots of K’s, lots of bombs: That’s the yin and yang of many contemporary sluggers. Wallner mashed a school-record 58 homers in three seasons at USM, a show of power that got him drafted 38th overall in 2019. He made his MLB debut last September and, of course, homered in his first game. P.S. Mississippi State product Dakota Hudson improved to 3-0 in three starts since returning to St. Louis’ rotation. He went 6 2/3 (two runs) in a 6-2 win against Oakland. … Former Madison Central High standout Spencer Turnbull, on a rehab assignment for Detroit, allowed six runs in five innings for Triple-A Toledo. … Drew Lugbauer, the Mississippi Braves’ all-time home run king, hit a homer in his first game for Triple-A Gwinnett. Lugbauer, promoted on Tuesday, hit 68 homers over three seasons for the Double-A M-Braves. … At Trustmark Park, Biloxi’s Jacob Misiorowski, Milwaukee’s No. 4 prospect, yielded one hit in six dominant innings as the first-place Shuckers beat the last-place M-Braves 3-0 in the Southern League. Looking like a right-handed Chris Sale, the 6-foot-7 Misiorowski struck out 12 batters. The M-Braves fanned 17 times all told.

15 Aug

advantage, shuckers

Based on the MLB Pipeline prospect rankings, Biloxi vs. Mississippi doesn’t look like a fair fight. The Shuckers, in Pearl tonight for the start of a six-game Southern League series, feature four of the Milwaukee Brewers’ top seven prospects, including the No. 1, outfielder Jackson Chourio. Chourio is the No. 2 overall prospect in the minors, and catcher Jeferson Quero, Milwaukee’s No. 3, is 34th overall. The M-Braves have only one of Atlanta’s top 20: left-hander Luis De Avila, ranked 14th. Based on the league standings, the Shuckers also appear to have the edge. Though the M-Braves lead the season series 11-10, the Shuckers currently lead the SL South with a 21-18 second-half mark. The M-Braves are 16-22, 4.5 games back in last place. In tonight’s opener at Trustmark Park, the M-Braves will trot out Alan Rangel (2-12, 5.46 ERA) against Brewers No. 4 prospect Jacob Misiorowski (1-1, 7.80, in four Double-A starts). On Wednesday, the Shuckers will start No. 7 prospect Carlos F. Rodriguez (7-4, 2.63). De Avila (6-7, 3.01) goes for Mississippi on Friday. Of note: Jesse Franklin V, Atlanta’s No. 22 prospect, is coming in hot for the M-Braves: He went 6-for-19 with two home runs and four RBIs last week and has a 23-game on-base streak. Franklin is batting .241 with 13 homers and 38 RBIs. M-Braves slugger Drew Lugbauer leads the SL in homers with 22, four more than Shuckers leader Wes Clarke. Tyler Black, who tops the league in steals with 47, was recently promoted from Biloxi to Triple-A Nashville.