Tag Archives: Ole Miss

24 May

tough luck

By the numbers and under the circumstances, it was Lance Lynn’s best start of the season and among the best in his seven-year big league career. Alas, the Ole Miss product got a no-decision and his team, the St. Louis Cardinals, took a loss, 2-1 in 13 innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night. Lynn went up against Clayton Kershaw in a battle of aces at Dodger Stadium and certainly held his own. In eight innings – 123 pitches – Lynn allowed just two hits and one run – a homer by Yasmani Grandal in the first inning – while striking out 10. Kershaw went nine, also struck out 10 and yielded just three hits. But a wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth cost him a run and sent the game into extra innings. “(Y)ou knew when we headed into this, I figured it was going to be a well-pitched game on both sides,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny told The Associated Press. “It was just going to be who got that big hit, and it was them.” Specifically, that would be a Logan Forsythe RBI double in the 13th. Lynn, a pending free agent who missed 2016 after Tommy John surgery, is 4-2 with a 2.53 ERA and 50 punchouts in 53 1/3 innings. P.S. Mark it down: Former Petal High star Anthony Alford got his first MLB hit on Tuesday, a pinch double in the seventh inning for Toronto against Milwaukee’s Rob Scahill.

22 May

big league chew

Mitch Moreland, one of several Boston hitters caught in a power drought, is showing signs of breaking out. The former Mississippi State star from Amory homered for the third straight game on Sunday in a 12-3 Red Sox win at Oakland. He now has five on the year. The Red Sox, trying to keep pace with Baltimore and New York in the American League East, rank 29th in the big leagues with 38 homers. … Corey Dickerson, generating a lot of All-Star buzz these days, got two more hits for Tampa Bay on Sunday, boosting his MLB-leading hit total to 59. The Meridian Community College product is batting .347 (ninth in the big leagues) and slugging .635 (eighth). He has 11 homers, five in his last 10 games. … Former Ole Miss star Zack Cozart is hitting .351 (fourth in MLB) for Cincinnati. He didn’t play Sunday (sore wrist) as the tumbling Reds lost for the eighth time in nine games. … East Central CC alum Tim Anderson is 12-for-26 with three homers in six games since returning from a trip home to Birmingham for the funeral of a close friend. Anderson, in an early season slump, is now hitting .264 with five bombs and 11 RBIs for the Chicago White Sox. … Ex-Petal High standout Anthony Alford took an 0-for-3 on Sunday and is still looking for his first big league hit since last week’s call-up by Toronto. … Baltimore’s Adam Jones hit his 124th homer at Camden Yards on Sunday, equaling ex-State star Rafael Palmeiro for the most in the Orioles’ home park.

19 May

have a day

The numbers are good, very good: .367, six home runs, 15 RBIs, 12 runs. The numbers were posted by a collection of Mississippians in the majors – 12 of them – on Thursday night. Collectively, the 12 who played went 18-for-49. Adam Frazier (Mississippi State) and Tim Anderson (East Central Community College) had three-hit games. Frazier drove in four runs. He and Anderson homered, as did Seth Smith (Ole Miss), Hunter Renfroe (State), Mitch Moreland (State) and Jarrod Dyson (Southwest CC). Dyson scored three times and stole two bases. Frazier, Anderson, Billy Hamilton (Taylorsville) and Chris Coghlan (Ole Miss) rapped doubles. Zack Cozart (Ole Miss) had two hits and an RBI. Tyler Moore (State) and Stuart Turner (Ole Miss) struck out in pinch-hit appearances, but every Mississippian who started got at least one knock, save for Brian Dozier (Southern Miss). He had a tough day, going 0-for-9 in a doubleheader, though he did contribute a sac fly. All in all, a very good day for the Magnolia State boys. And the hottest hitter of them all, Corey Dickerson (Meridian CC, .335, nine homers, 18 RBIs), didn’t have a game on Thursday. P.S. Baseball America’s latest Top 500 draft prospects list shows just two Mississippians: State’s Brent Rooker at No. 64 and Jake Mangum at 160.

17 May

down on the farm

JaCoby Jones, trying to work his way back to The Show, is hitting .250 with a homer, six RBIs and 11 runs in 16 games at Triple-A Toledo in the Detroit system. Former Richton High star Jones, who started the season in the big leagues, was batting just .150 when he was hit in the mouth by a pitch on April 22 and landed on the 10-day disabled list. The Tigers sent the 25-year-old rookie outfielder on a rehab assignment to Toledo, then optioned him to the Mud Hens’ roster on May 7. Jones is one of a batch of players with Mississippi connections toiling in the Tigers’ farm system. Also at Toledo is Ole Miss alum Alex Presley, the veteran big leaguer who re-signed a minor league deal with Detroit in the off-season. Presley, an outfielder, is hitting .206 with a homer and eight RBIs in 33 games. At high Class A Lakeland, there’s ex-Madison Central standout Spencer Turnbull, a 2014 draftee out of Alabama. Turnbull had perhaps his best outing of 2017 on Tuesday, throwing seven shutout innings to move his record to 3-2 and drop his ERA to 4.32. Former Ole Miss star Will Allen, also a 2014 draft pick, is the first baseman at Lakeland. He is batting .226 with five homers (matching his entire 2016 total) and 14 RBIs. At low-A West Michigan we find Jacob Robson, an eighth-round pick out of Mississippi State last summer whose star appears to be rising quickly. Robson, a lefty-hitting outfielder, is batting .338 with 13 RBIs and 25 runs in 37 games for the Whitecaps.

15 May

show stoppers

Tampa Bay can’t be too happy with its record – 19-21, fourth in the American League East – but has to be thrilled with the production it’s getting from Corey Dickerson. The Meridian Community College product, in his second season with the Rays, is batting .340 with a .576 slugging percentage. He extended his current hitting streak to eight games on Sunday with a 4-for-6 effort in an 11-2 win against Boston at wet, windy Fenway Park. He has six homers, 13 RBIs and 21 runs. The lefty-hitting outfielder/DH belted 24 homers for the Rays in 2016 but hit only .245 after coming over in a trade with Colorado. … Ole Miss alum Drew Pomeranz took the loss for the Red Sox, departing with triceps stiffness after yielding two runs in three innings. He is now 3-3 with a 5.29 ERA. … Ex-Mississippi State star Tyler Moore’s 25th career MLB homer and fourth as a pinch hitter carried Miami to a 3-1 win over Atlanta. Moore smacked an R.A. Dickey knuckleball out of Marlins Park in the seventh inning, accounting for all of Miami’s runs. Moore is hitting .357 over his two stints with the Marlins this season, serving mainly as a pinch hitter. “I love being in the big leagues,” he told The Associated Press. “Whatever is going to keep me here, I like.” … Former Southwest Mississippi CC standout Jarrod Dyson hit his first homer of the year for Seattle at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. It was his eighth career home run and the first in a park other than Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, where he spent the first seven seasons of his career. … Hunter Renfroe went deep for San Diego, the sixth homer of the year for the State product but first since April 26. The rookie right fielder is batting .209 with 13 RBIs. … Among the major leaguers wearing No. 2 on Sunday, the day the New York Yankees retired Derek Jeter’s old number, were former Southern Miss star Brian Dozier and ex-UM standout Zack Cozart, both of whom came up as shortstops during Jeter’s heyday.

12 May

three to watch

In a recent online chat, a Baseball America scribe made a prediction for this summer’s college Team USA roster that included three players from Mississippi: State’s Konnor Pilkington, Ole Miss’ Dallas Woolfolk and Southern Miss’ Matt Wallner. They are worthy candidates – and certainly worthy of keeping an eye on this weekend as the Big 3 charge toward tournament season. Pilkington, the sophomore left-hander out of East Central High, is slated to start today at Georgia. He is just 5-4 in 12 starts, but his wins have been big ones for the Bulldogs, 32-17 and 16-8, tied for best in the SEC. He has a 3.82 ERA with 84 strikeouts in 73 innings. Woolfolk, a sophomore out of DeSoto Central, has been a solid closer for Ole Miss, which faces a crucial series against nationally ranked Texas A&M in Oxford. While both State and USM are projected as regional hosts in Baseball America’s latest mock NCAA Tournament field, the Rebels (29-20, 11-13) aren’t in at all. Woolfolk has 10 saves, three wins and a 1.91 ERA in 23 appearances. USM (37-12, 19-5 C-USA) can clinch the conference title this weekend against UAB in Hattiesburg. Wallner, a freshman from Minnesota, has been just one of several mashers in the Golden Eagles lineup. The 6-foot-5 outfielder leads the team with 15 homers and is batting .328 (.447 on-base) with 47 RBIs. He also has three saves and a 1.84 ERA on the mound. P.S. East Central Community College has advanced to the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament with a two-game sweep of Mississippi Delta in their best-of-3 series. Game 1 winners on Thursday were Hinds, Northwest and Pearl River. No. 1-ranked Jones County and LSU-Eunice received byes to the six-team region tournament, which starts next week at Ellisville.

10 May

ups and downs

Lot of good stuff happened on Tuesday: Zack Shannon was named the Most Outstanding Player in the Gulf South Conference Tournament after sparking Delta State to a 6-3 win over West Alabama in Cleveland for the program’s 14th conference tourney title. Shannon, a junior college transfer, belted a three-run home run – his 18th — in the third inning to get the ball rolling for DSU, which clinched a berth in the NCAA Division II South Region Tournament. … Atlanta prospect Ronald Acuna hit the first pitch he saw in Double-A out of the park en route to a 3-for-4, three-RBI night as the Mississippi Braves whipped Mobile 9-1 at Trustmark Park. Fellow 19-year-old Kolby Allard (3-1) got the win. … Seth Smith, the former Ole Miss star, went 2-for-4 with his third homer of the year to help Baltimore beat Washington 5-4 in 12 innings for its sixth straight victory. Mississippi State product Buck Showalter’s Orioles have MLB’s best record at 22-10. … Taylorsville High alum Billy Hamilton had two hits, two RBIs and a run as Cincinnati cooled off the New York Yankees 5-3. Hamilton has 15 hits, 14 runs, 10 RBIs and nine steals over his last 10 games while boosting his average some 40 points to .252. … Ex-State standout Tyler Moore was added to Miami’s big league roster, recalled from Triple-A New Orleans. Moore, who didn’t play Tuesday, was 4-for-11 in an earlier stint with the Marlins. … There were a couple of downers: Ole Miss product Drew Pomeranz got lit up in Boston’s 11-7 loss at Milwaukee. He gave up six runs in four innings and fell to 3-2 with a 5.23 ERA on the season. … Ex-State star Hunter Renfroe took an 0-for-3 for San Diego in an 11-0 loss to Texas and saw his average drop to .200. He hasn’t homered since April 26, a span of 10 games. P.S. Nice feature on State slugger Brent Rooker posted today on Baseball America’s web site. The story suggests that Rooker, a 22-year-old senior, has played his way into consideration as a first-day pick in the MLB draft.

05 May

scatter shots

Through 40 major league games with San Diego, Hunter Renfroe has nine home runs. Extrapolated over a full season, that’s roughly 36 bombs, a good number. The other numbers aren’t so good for the Mississippi State product from Crystal Springs. His batting average is .281, but it’s just .212 in 29 games this season and .146 over the last 10. He has struck out 32 times and walked twice this season. He has three “hat tricks” in the last six games. The Padres are 12-18 and going nowhere this season, so one would think Renfroe will be allowed these growing pains. … Ex-Ole Miss star Lance Lynn, who has won three straight starts and yielded just two runs in that span, goes to the bump at SunTrust Park tonight when St. Louis visits Atlanta. Lynn didn’t pitch in the big leagues in 2016 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He has shown no ill effects in 2017: 3-1, 2.45, 25 strikeouts in 29 1/3 innings. In case you were wondering, Mississippi Braves alum Freddie Freeman is 1-for-8 with three punchouts vs. Lynn. … Richton High product JaCoby Jones is 4-for-17 through five games on his rehab assignment at Triple-A Toledo. Jones, who opened the season as Detroit’s center fielder, was hit in the mouth by a pitch on April 22 and went on the disabled list the next day. He was batting just .150 with a homer and four RBIs in 16 MLB games but was leading the club in Defensive Runs Saved at the time he was hurt. A converted infielder, Jones has excellent speed and a good arm. … The change of scene this season doesn’t appear to have rejuvenated former Ole Miss star Alex Yarbrough. Drafted out of the Los Angeles Angels’ system by Miami last December, Yarbrough is batting .254 with seven RBIs through 23 games for Double-A Jacksonville in the Southern League. After reaching Triple-A in 2015, Yarbrough fell back to Double-A last season and hit .267 (with a bunch of strikeouts) at Arkansas. The switch-hitting infielder is 25 and in his sixth pro season. … Austin Riley, the ex-DeSoto Central standout and highly rated Atlanta prospect, is showing signs of settling in at high Class A Florida. He is at .259 with five homers and 19 RBIs, .282 with three homers in his last 10 games. A supplemental first-round pick in 2015, third baseman Riley just turned 20 on April 2.

04 May

there’ll be better days

Ole Miss product Bobby Wahl made his big league debut Wednesday night. He is no doubt anxiously awaiting his second opportunity. Mississippi State alum Kendall Graveman suffered his worst start of the season for Oakland and Wahl offered little relief in a 7-4 loss to Minnesota. Graveman gave up six runs in 3 1/3 innings, yielding four walks and five hits, including Kennys Vargas’ three-run homer. Wahl, recalled from Triple-A Nashville earlier in the day, came on in the sixth inning and lasted just four batters. He hit one (ex-Southern Miss star Brian Dozier) and allowed two hits and a run. Wahl, a fifth-round pick in 2013, had a 1.93 ERA and three saves this season at Nashville. Rated the A’s No. 26 prospect by MLB Pipeline, the right-hander was added to the 40-man roster over the winter. Over 116 games in the minors – working mostly in relief – Wahl, 25, has a 3.79 ERA, 27 saves in 31 chances and 205 strikeouts in 171 innings. His fastball has touched 100 mph. P.S. Former Ole Miss standout Drew Pomeranz seems to be putting to rest any concerns about his left arm. He improved to 3-1 with a 4.00 ERA by throwing 5 1/3 strong innings on Wednesday in Boston’s 4-2 win vs. Baltimore, yet another controversy-filled game in their series. Pomeranz has made three of his five 2017 starts against the Orioles, beating them twice.

28 Apr

stranger things

We should have known it was going to be an unusual week on Monday, when Brian Dozier ripped a base-loaded double for Minnesota, accounting for all the Twins’ runs in a 3-2 win against Texas. That was especially noteworthy because the former Southern Miss star is one of those rare major leaguers who does NOT hit well with the bases loaded. He was 5-for-41 since 2012. The big hit Monday also doubled Dozier’s RBI total for the season. Of course, we were only getting started. On Tuesday, Ole Miss alum Chris Coghlan did his high-flying act for Toronto, soaring over St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina to land on home plate. It was hard to miss that highlight. On Wednesday, ex-UM standout Seth Smith scored a so-called “Little League home run” for Baltimore after a simple single to right field. Smith circled the bases as Tampa Bay fielders threw the ball all over the place trying to nail a runner, Ryan Flaherty, at third base. That highlight got a lot of play, too. This brings us to Thursday night and to Kendall Graveman, the Mississippi State product who pitches for Oakland. All he did was turn an unassisted double play, tagging out a Los Angeles Angels runner between third and home and then getting another as he slid into third. “That’s probably the best play I’ve ever seen a pitcher make, hurdling over a defender to get the second out unassisted,” A’s manager Bob Melvin told The Associated Press. It was the first unassisted DP by an A’s pitcher since the immortal Blue Moon Odom turned the trick in 1971. What could possibly happen today? Can’t hardly wait.