Mississippi Braves Archives - Page 25 of 91

13 Oct

a few observations

Takeaways from Wednesday night’s National League Division Series:
1) Kyle Wright, the former Mississippi Braves right-hander, is pretty good. Yes, Atlanta scored a lot of runs when he pitched this season and racked up 21 wins. But the game against Philadelphia and ace Zack Wheeler was a grinder, and Wright was up to the task, shutting out the red-hot Phillies for six innings, yielding but two hits and a walk. He’s no fluke.
2) Former M-Braves third baseman Austin Riley and shortstop Dansby Swanson deserve recognition among the best defensive players at their positions. Both made highlight reel catches for Atlanta that will be marveled at for weeks (years?) to come, especially if the Braves make another October run.
3) If Josh Hader has indeed recovered his old form, San Diego could be a beast in these playoffs. The former Biloxi Shuckers star, who had some well-chronicled struggles this season, was throwing nasty gas for San Diego, getting the last four outs in the Padres’ 5-3 win over Los Angeles. “He looked like he wanted it when he came in,” Padres catcher Austin Nola told mlb.com. The wiry left-hander wasn’t perfect. Only 16 of Hader’s 25 pitches were strikes, but he cut down the vaunted top of the Dodgers’ lineup in the ninth, allowing only a hit to Freddie Freeman. Traded from Milwaukee to San Diego at the deadline, Hader had a 7.31 ERA in 19 games for the Padres. But over his last seven appearances, he did not allow a run, struck out eight, walked one and registered four saves. Fans of the Shuckers and M-Braves might recall Hader’s 2016 stint in Biloxi, when he posted a 0.95 ERA with 73 strikeouts in 57 innings over 11 starts. He was scary good, and he might be again.

12 Oct

range of emotions

The New York Yankees — and their fans — may be laughing about it now, having won Game 1 of the American League Division Series against Cleveland. But what happened in the bottom of the fifth inning Tuesday night with the score tied was cringe-worthy. First base coaches generally work in anonymity, but Travis Chapman, the ex-Mississippi State standout who handles that job for the Yankees, became a co-star in a moment that could have ranked as an all-time gaffe. Josh Donaldson thought he hit a home run and broke into a trot out of the box. Chapman also thought the ball was gone into the right-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium. He slapped hands with Donaldson as he approached the bag. But the ball hit the top of the wall and bounced back into play. Donaldson was cut down diving back into first. He saved face only because the Yankees won the game 4-1. … There had to be some disappointment for Southern Miss product Kirk McCarty, who was on the Guardians’ active roster for the Wild Card Series but was taken off before Tuesday’s game, joining the injured Nick Sandlin, another former Golden Eagles pitcher, on the sidelines. … There were a lot of frowns in Atlanta after the Braves’ 7-6 loss to Philadelphia, most notably on the faces of former Mississippi Braves Austin Riley (0-for-4, three strikeouts), Max Fried (six runs and a costly error in 3 1/3 innings), Dansby Swanson (1-for-5, four K’s) and Michael Harris II (0-for-4). Game 2 of the National League Division Series is today, with M-Braves alum and 21-game winner Kyle Wright starting for the Braves. … Ecstatic might best describe how former M-Braves pitcher Evan Phillips felt after escaping a two-on, no-out jam in the sixth inning, preserving Los Angeles’ two-run lead vs. San Diego. Phillips, an extremely effective reliever (7-2, 1.14 ERA, two saves) for the Dodgers this season, got a punchout and a double-play ball to register the hold. The Dodgers held on to win 5-3. … Crushed might best describe how ex-State star Adam Frazier felt in the ninth inning as he watched Yordan Alvarez’s three-run moon shot sail into the right-field seats at Minute Maid Park, delivering Houston an 8-7 win against Seattle. Frazier, the Mariners second baseman, went 1-for-4 with a run as his club built a 7-3 lead through seven innings. P.S. Mississippi native Lance Barksdale is part of the umpiring crew for the Dodgers-Padres series. He was in left field Tuesday.

04 Oct

around the horn

Hunter Renfroe would not go down without a fight on Monday night. The former Mississippi State standout from Crystal Springs homered as part of a three-run rally in the ninth inning, then drove in the game-winning run with a 10th-inning single, sparking a celebration by his Milwaukee teammates. The good feeling didn’t last. A short time later, Philadelphia beat Houston and eliminated the Brewers from postseason contention. Milwaukee, which had made the playoffs four straight years, led the National League Central into the summer before swooning and getting run down by St. Louis. Acquired from Boston in the off-season, Renfroe has been productive, batting .257. His homer Monday against Arizona was his 29th and the game-winning RBI his 72nd. Fellow MSU product Brandon Woodruff delivered a quality start (six innings, two runs) against the Diamondbacks; he was 4-1 with a 2.42 ERA in his last seven starts. It wasn’t enough. … Atlanta, needing a win to clinch the NL East, went down with a whimper at Miami, losing 4-0 while striking out 14 times. DeSoto Central High alum Austin Riley wore a golden sombrero, fanning four times in four at-bats and stranding four baserunners. … Former Mississippi Braves star Drew Waters hit a game-deciding three-run homer for Kansas City, taking Southern Miss alum Kirk McCarty deep in the 10th inning at Cleveland. Waters, the 2019 Southern League MVP traded away by Atlanta this summer for a draft pick, is batting .261 with five homers and 18 RBIs since being called up by the Royals. … Ex-Biloxi High standout Colt Keith went 2-for-4 with an RBI for Salt River on opening day in the Arizona Fall League. The Detroit Tigers prospect hit .301 with nine homers in an injury-curtailed season at the High-Class A level. Also debuting in the AFL Monday was 2022 M-Braves outfielder Justyn-Henry Malloy, who went 0-for-2 with three walks for Scottsdale. Malloy hit 17 homers over three levels this past season, six for the M-Braves and one (in his first game) at Triple-A Gwinnett. … Trivia time: When Tony LaRussa began his Hall of Fame managerial career with the Chicago White Sox in August of 1979, who did he replace? Answer: Don Kessinger, the former Ole Miss standout, was player-manager for the ChiSox for the first 106 games of the 1979 season, resigning on Aug. 2 with a 46-60 record. That was the last of Kessinger’s 16 seasons as a player. LaRussa, on leave from the White Sox since late August with medical issues, retired on Monday.

01 Oct

a long-awaited party

They partied like it was 2001 in Seattle on Friday night when the Mariners clinched their first postseason berth since that storied season. Pause here for a brief trip down memory lane. The ’01 Mariners won a record 116 games with a team that included Ichiro Suzuki, Edgar Martinez, Bret Boone, Jamie Moyer and three former Jackson Generals who were part of a blockbuster trade in 1998. At the trade deadline that year, the M’s sent Randy Johnson to Houston for three players on the Double-A Generals’ roster: shortstop Carlos Guillen and pitchers Freddy Garcia and John Halama. In 2001 — by which time Johnson was in Arizona — those three were integral pieces in Seattle’s success. Guillen hit .259 as the regular shortstop, Garcia was 18-6 with a 3.05 ERA and Halama went 10-7. The ’01 Mariners went out with a whimper, losing to the New York Yankees in five games in the American League Championship Series. (The Yanks were later vanquished by Johnson and the Diamondbacks in the World Series.) The ’22 Mariners clinched with a walk-off 2-1 win against Oakland. Former Mississippi Braves shortstop Dylan Moore, who also played briefly in Biloxi, scored the M’s first run in the first inning after leading off with a single and stealing second, his 21st bag. Moore is batting .219 while playing seven different positions. Ex-Mississippi State star Adam Frazier, Seattle’s usual second baseman, didn’t play in Friday’s game. He has had a down year (.235, 38 points under his career average) but will be going to the postseason for the first time in his seven MLB campaigns. P.S. Another ex-M-Braves shortstop, Dansby Swanson, hit one of the three homers Atlanta got against Jacob deGrom in the 5-2 win on Friday that moved the Braves into a tie with the New York Mets atop the National League East. Swanson’s bomb was the 100th of his career. DeSoto Central High product Austin Riley hit his 38th homer of the season and third career against deGrom. … Former Biloxi Shuckers pitchers Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams combined on a five-hitter as Milwaukee beat Miami 1-0 and stayed a half-game back of Philadelphia in the battle for the third NL wild card. (San Diego, which has lost three in a row, hasn’t clinched a wild card, either.) Burnes (12-8) went eight innings, and Williams (15 saves) survived a wobbly ninth (a hit and two walks) by striking out the side.

30 Sep

eye on …

Austin Riley, the former DeSoto Central High star, has had a big year for Atlanta, but the MVP chatter surrounding the third baseman has diminished lately. He has a chance to revive it this weekend in the series that’s been circled on a lot of calendars seemingly for months. Just in case you’ve been living under a rock all summer, the New York Mets visit Truist Park for a three-game set that could decide the National League East title. The Braves are down a game in the standings. One of Riley’s main rivals for MVP is the Mets’ Pete Alonso, so that’s a subplot worth watching. Riley is batting .275 with 37 home runs and 92 RBIs. But over his last 15 games, he has hit just .200 with one homer and two RBIs. The Braves need better production this weekend. For the record, Riley is batting .294 with two homers and five RBIs career against Jacob deGrom, New York’s starter in tonight’s opener. … There will also be a spotlight on several other former Mississippi Braves. The immensely talented Ronald Acuna (.275, 15 homers, 28 steals) has hit just .214 in his last seven games. Michael Harris II, the likely NL rookie of the year, is batting .305 with 19 homers, 64 RBIs and 20 bags — but is at .267 with one homer in his last seven. And then there are the starting pitchers in three dream matchups. Max Fried (13-7, 2.50 ERA) faces deGrom tonight, followed by Kyle Wright (20-5, 3.18) against Max Scherzer on Saturday and Charlie Morton (9-6, 4.29) vs. Chris Bassitt on Sunday. The managerial matchup is also pretty sweet: Former M-Braves skipper Brian Snitker rolling the dice against ex-Mississippi State star Buck Showalter. P.S. The M-Braves, Atlanta’s Double-A club, will play an exhibition game against Jackson State next April 5 at Smith-Wills Stadium, it was announced on Thursday. Proceeds from the Hank Aaron Tribute Game reportedly will go to a fund to improve facilities at Jackson parks and schools. Smith-Wills was the longtime home of Jackson’s Double-A Texas League teams, the Mets and Generals, and now hosts the Hank Aaron Sports Academy. The Generals, a Houston affiliate, played JSU in an exhibition game at Smith-Wills in 1991.

27 Sep

whatever happened to …

Demarcus Evans, the former Petal High star, has turned his season around the last two months at Triple-A Round Rock in the Texas organization. In 18 games in August and September, the 6-foot-5, 265-pound right-handed reliever has put up a 1.00 ERA with a win and four saves, including one on Monday against Sugar Land. A 25th-round draft pick out of Petal in 2015, Evans pitched in the big leagues in 2020-21, posting a 4.75 ERA in 29 appearances. He was expected to contend for a bullpen role this season but was optioned to Round Rock during spring training and didn’t pitch in a game until late May. In late June, off to a rocky start, he was dropped from the 40-man roster and outrighted to Round Rock. His performance the past two months may have put him back on the MLB radar, if not for the Rangers then some other club. For the year, the 25-year-old Evans has a 3.82 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 33 innings over 32 games. P.S. Kudos to Bryce Elder, the Mississippi Braves alumnus who became the first Atlanta rookie in 32 years to throw a shutout. The right-hander beat Washington 8-0 with an impressively efficient six-hitter on Monday, improving to 2-3, 2.76, in nine MLB games this season. Elder, from Texas, went 7-1, 3.21 — with one complete game — for the Double-A South champion M-Braves last season. He was promoted to Triple-A before the postseason.

16 Sep

fall guys

Four Mississippi products, each having battled injuries this season, are on the preliminary rosters for the Arizona Fall League, the select circuit for minor league prospects. Mississippi State alums Will Bednar and J.T. Ginn, ex-Southern Miss star Reed Trimble and former Biloxi High standout Colt Keith are slotted to play in the six-team AFL, which starts its season on Oct. 3. Bednar, the MVP of the 2021 College World Series and the 14th overall pick in the ’21 draft by San Francisco, is 1-3 with a 4.19 ERA in 12 games at the Low-Class A level. Ginn, a second-round pick in 2020, has made 10 starts this year in Double-A in Oakland’s system, posting a 1-4, 6.11 ledger. Ginn was traded by the New York Mets to the A’s for Chris Bassitt during spring training. Trimble, an outfielder and 2021 draftee, is hitting .291 in Low-A ball for Baltimore. Keith, drafted in 2020 by Detroit, hit .301 with nine homers in an abbreviated season at High-A. He was Mississippi’s Gatorade Player of the Year in 2019. Among Atlanta’s AFL contingent are current Mississippi Braves Justyn-Henry Malloy and Allan Winans. They’ll be with the Scottsdale team, along with Trimble and Bednar. Ginn will go to Mesa and Keith to Salt River. The rosters could change before or during the season. A bevy of Top 100 overall prospects are scheduled to participate, including four of MLB Pipeline’s Top 20.

14 Sep

clearing the bases

Time for Atlanta to make room for Ozzie Albies? The former Mississippi Braves star, on an injury rehab assignment at Triple-A Gwinnett, went 5-for-5 with a walk-off home run on Tuesday. The Braves’ erstwhile second baseman is batting .348 in 23 ABs at Gwinnett. He has been on the injured list since mid-June with a broken bone in his foot. … Former M-Braves Ronald Acuna, Dansby Swanson and Michael Harris II contributed six hits, four RBIs and three runs in Atlanta’s 5-1 win at San Francisco that moved the Braves within a half-game of the New York Mets in the National League East. Former M-Braves right-hander Kyle Wright became the Braves’ first 18-game winner since 2003. … East Central Community College product Tim Anderson, out for over a month with a hand injury, reportedly will ramp up baseball activities for the Chicago White Sox and could return to the lineup next week. The All-Star shortstop and team leadoff batter is hitting .301. … The White Sox, keeping pace in the American League Central with Cleveland, won for the 10th time in 14 games since manager Tony LaRussa stepped aside for health reasons. Ex-Mississippi State star Kendall Graveman worked a scoreless inning for his 24th hold as the ChiSox beat Colorado 4-2. … The Guardians remained 3 games up on Chicago by beating the Los Angeles Angels 3-1 as Southern Miss alum Kirk McCarty picked up his third MLB win with 3 1/3 scoreless relief innings. The rookie lefty now has a 4.88 ERA. … Former State standout Hunter Renfroe had two hits, an RBI and a run in Milwaukee’s 8-4 win against rival St. Louis and Jordan Montgomery. The Brewers, 7 games back of the Cardinals in the NL Central and fourth in the wild card standings, have won three in a row. … Ex-Mississippi College star Blaine Crim went 1-for-3 with two RBIs in his Triple-A debut for Round Rock in the Texas chain. He hit .295 with 24 homers and 91 RBIs at Double-A Frisco. … USM product Matt Wallner put up a 3-for-4 with two RBIs for Triple-A St. Paul (Minnesota) to lift his average to .257; he has six homers and 31 RBIs in 48 games there. He hit .299 with 21 homers in Double-A to start the season. P.S. On this date in 1912, Crystal Springs native Phil Redding made his big league debut — and it was one to forget. Right-hander Redding, starting for St. Louis against the Boston Braves, allowed 16 hits, five walks and nine earned runs in eight innings. (Was he being punished?) He won his next two starts, pitched in one more game in 2013 and then never again in the majors.

13 Sep

cheers

It wasn’t all cupcakes and balloons for Konnor Pilkington on his 25th birthday, though the night did have a happy ending. The Mississippi State product from Pascagoula got the start for Cleveland against the Los Angels on Monday — in a game featured on MLB Network’s Clubhouse Edition — and he no-hit the Angels for 3 1/3 innings. But the big lefty, working with a lead, yielded two-run home runs to Matt Duffy and Mike Trout in consecutive innings that tied the score. Pilkington departed after the fifth and watched from the dugout as the Guardians rallied to win 5-4 in a tense game in which both managers were ejected. Cleveland increased its lead in the American League Central to 3 games. Pilkington, a rookie, has been called up eight different times from Triple-A Columbus yet has managed a fairly steady performance in his big league opportunities. Over 14 games, 10 starts, he has a 4.30 ERA and a 1-2 record. At Columbus, he is 2-4, 5.66. A third-round pick out of State by the Chicago White Sox in 2018, Pilkington was traded to Cleveland last summer. He and former Southern Miss pitchers Nick Sandlin and Kirk McCarty, also a rookie, have been contributors for what appears to be a playoff-bound club. P.S. The Dodgers became the first team to clinch a postseason berth by beating Arizona 6-0 on Monday. Former Mississippi Braves standout Freddie Freeman, in his first year in L.A., has been a driving force in the star-studded lineup. Not to be overlooked is the performance of another M-Braves alum, right-hander Evan Phillips. Phillips, who passed through Pearl in 2016-17, notched his 18th hold on Monday and trimmed his ERA to 1.33 in 55 appearances. He has six wins and two saves for the National League West behemoth.

10 Sep

another step back

After getting limited at-bats during a month with Kansas City, Brent Rooker was optioned back to Triple-A Omaha on Friday. The Mississippi State product went 4-for-25 with the Royals. Two of those hits came in his KC debut back on Aug. 13. Kansas City traded with San Diego to get Rooker, a 27-year-old outfielder, at the August deadline, and it was assumed he’d get more of an opportunity with the lowly Royals than he did with the Padres (seven at-bats). It didn’t happen. Rooker, the 35th overall pick by Minnesota in 2017 after an All-America career at State, has hit well in the minors but not so much in the big leagues. Including his two seasons with the Twins, he is batting .200 with 10 homers and 86 strikeouts in 81 MLB games. Between Triple-A El Paso and Omaha this year, he has slugged 22 homers and batted .286. He has a .267 career average in the minors with 96 bombs but has struck out in roughly a third of his ABs. Wonder if he’ll get another shot with the Royals? P.S. Former Ole Miss star Nick Fortes went 3-for-4 with an RBI and two runs to help Miami beat the New York Mets 6-3 on Friday — and to help streaking Atlanta move into first place in the National League East. The Braves blasted four home runs and won 6-4 at Seattle. … Biloxi clinched the season series (see previous post) against the Mississippi Braves with an 8-3 win at MGM Park. The Shuckers are 16-12 vs. their Double-A Southern League rival with two games remaining this weekend.