Tag Archives: Ole Miss

10 Aug

well-stocked toolbox

In his relatively brief time in the minors, Anthony Alford has hit and run and showed enough arm to play right field. The power hasn’t been there, but you have to think that tool will come out soon. Ex-Petal High star Alford, now Toronto’s No. 3 prospect, is batting .304 with 13 RBIs, 26 runs and nine steals in 40 games at Class A Dunedin in the Florida State League. Batting leadoff and playing center field on Sunday, he had a four-hit game, including a triple and a walk-off double. He hit .293 with 16 RBIs, 49 runs and 12 steals in 50 games at Lansing in the low-A Midwest League before earning a promotion. Alford, 21, has just one home run at each level this season, his first full year in pro ball since the Blue Jays drafted the erstwhile football player in 2012. He has five bombs in 115 career games. Alford lists at 6 feet 1, 205 pounds and looks bigger. At Petal, where he was Mr. Baseball and Mr. Football, drawing Bo Jackson comparisons, Alford hit four homers and slugged .805 in 30 games as a senior. The power will come. And just wait till he gets a chance to hit at Toronto’s Rogers Centre in a couple of years. P.S. Versatility is keeping Ole Miss alum Chris Coghlan in the sizzling Chicago Cubs’ lineup. Coghlan, a lefty hitter, has been playing second base, his primary minor league position, of late (since Starlin Castro’s benching). Coghlan has played mostly left field for manager Joe Maddon but also has seen time at third, first and right field. He is batting only .248 but has a .334 on-base percentage, 11 homers, 25 RBIs and 10 steals.

09 Aug

around the horn

Former Harrison Central High standout Bobby Bradley blasted his 20th home run of the season on Saturday for Class A Lake County in the Cleveland system. Bradley, only 19, is batting .256 with 68 RBIs in his second pro season. … Ole Miss alumnus Will Allen has been named to the New York-Penn League All-Star Game, set for Aug. 18. Allen, a catcher drafted in the 13th round by Detroit in June, is hitting .263 with a homer and 17 RBIs in 33 games for Connecticut in the short-season A league. … Also impressing in the Tigers’ system is catcher Kade Scivicque, a former Southwest Mississippi Community College star, drafted in the fourth round this year out of LSU. He is batting .282 with two homers and 10 RBIs in 19 games at West Michigan in the Class A Midwest League. … And to continue on a Tigers theme: JaCoby Jones, the ex-Richton High star, hit his fourth home run in eight games for Double-A Erie in the Eastern League. Jones, a shortstop traded from Pittsburgh to Detroit last month, is hitting .300 with nine RBIs and 12 runs. He has 14 homers on the season. … Stone County High alum D.J. Davis also homered on Saturday and is batting .350 with five RBIs and 10 runs in his last 10 games for Class A Lansing in the Midwest League. Davis, a 2012 first-rounder by Toronto, is batting .290 for the season. … Mississippi State product Jonathan Holder went 5 1/3 innings on Saturday for Class A Tampa in the New York Yankees’ system, allowing just one run. It was his longest outing since June 6, just before he took a month-long trip to the DL. Holder, in his second pro season, is 5-3 with a 2.52 ERA in the high-A Florida State League.

08 Aug

going into battle

The St. Louis Cardinals’ lineup doesn’t blow you away with star power, and their pitching staff has been without its ace, Adam Wainwright, all season. And yet here they are with 70 wins, most in the majors. They’re a playoff contender every year. What the Cardinals do is battle, every inning, every game, every season. Case in point: Former Ole Miss star Lance Lynn on Friday night at Milwaukee. Lynn didn’t have command of his fastball, which he relies on heavily. He allowed six hits and four walks in six innings. But he didn’t allow a Brewer to cross the plate. He battled, and St. Louis won 6-0. Milwaukee had two runners on in three of the first four innings and the bases loaded in the sixth. Lynn got out of that final mess with a strikeout, his seventh of the game. “With runners in scoring position, I was able to make a pitch,” the big right-hander told The Associated Press. Lynn, who missed some time with an injury this year, is 9-6 with a 2.76 ERA. He has 136 K’s in 127 1/3 innings. He has won 57 games since moving into the St. Louis rotation in 2012, throwing mostly fastballs. And battling.

07 Aug

random numbers

8 – Hits, including three doubles, a triple and a home run, by Austin Riley in six games for Danville, Atlanta’s advanced rookie team. The former DeSoto Central High star, the 41st overall pick in the June draft, was promoted last week from the Gulf Coast League, where he had seven homers and 21 RBIs.
.349 – Batting average over 73 games for Adam Frazier, the ex-Mississippi State standout now playing at Double-A Altoona in the Pittsburgh system. Frazier, playing shortstop and center field, has 10 hits in his last six games.
2 – Innings pitched in pro ball this season by Jacob Taylor, the Pearl River Community College product drafted in the fourth round by Pittsburgh. Taylor recently had Tommy John surgery and may not pitch again until 2017.
9 – Holds by Tony Sipp, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College alum from Pascagoula, for the Houston Astros. Sipp pitched a clean inning Thursday in the first-place Astros’ 5-4 win against Oakland and lowered his ERA to 2.52.
9 – Hits, in 27 at-bats, for Daniel Castro, the Mississippi Braves alumnus who has been filling in at shortstop in Atlanta for injured Andrelton Simmons. Castro had three hits and scored twice in Thursday’s 9-8 win over Miami.
41 – Stolen bases by Tim Anderson, the ex-East Central Community College star now playing at Double-A Birmingham in the Chicago White Sox’s system. Anderson, batting .302, leads all of Double-A in steals and leads the Southern League in hits (126) and runs (62).
4.60 – Aaron Barrett’s ERA for Washington when the Nationals sent the Ole Miss product to Triple-A on Thursday. Barrett had a 2.66 in 2014.
23 – Home runs in 2015 by the Mississippi Braves, including Kevin Ahrens’ game-winner on Thursday against Montgomery. The M-Braves are dead last in the SL in homers; ninth-place Biloxi has 47. Ahrens leads the team with five.
1,220 — Hits in pro ball, including 38 in the big leagues, by Brandon Jones, the ex-Mississippi Braves star who announced his retirement during his 12th season on Wednesday. He was playing for Bridgeport in the independent Atlantic League and batting .243.
18 – Strikeouts, in 15 innings for Pensacola, by Cody Reed, the Northwest Mississippi Community College product who moved from the Kansas City organization to Cincinnati in the Johnny Cueto trade. Lefty Reed is 2-0 with one run allowed in two starts for the Southern League’s Blue Wahoos.

06 Aug

the heat is on

Be careful what you wish for? Jonathan Papelbon got his wish: a trade to a contending team. Strangely enough, the Washington Nationals are 3-5 since the Mississippi State alum joined the team and have lost five of six. They are just 55-51 now and have dropped 2 games behind the surging New York Mets in the National League East. Can’t blame Papelbon for any of this; he is 2-for-2 in saves with the Nationals and has yielded just one earned run in three appearances. He never got up on Wednesday. The Nats had a 2-1 lead on visiting Arizona in the sixth inning, but with Ole Miss product Aaron Barrett on the hill, the game slipped away. Barrett got just one out, allowing four hits and three runs (plus an inherited runner scored), and he committed a costly throwing error. Down 11-2 in the ninth, Washington resorted to using outfielder/first baseman Tyler Moore on the mound, and the ex-State star got the last two outs. Crazy. … Also on the skids is Minnesota, which has lost four in a row and 13 of 18. The Twins (54-53) are 9.5 games behind first-place Kansas City in the American League Central and 2 games out of the wild card picture. The Twins’ slump coincides with the struggles of former Southern Miss star Brian Dozier, the team catalyst who is batting .180 with six runs over his last 15 games. … On the flip side, Texas is sizzling (again), and former Bulldogs standout Mitch Moreland continues to swing a hot bat. The Rangers (54-53) beat Houston 4-3 on Wednesday to complete a sweep of their AL West rival and move within 5 games of the first-place Astros. Moreland went 2-for-4 with an RBI in Wednesday’s win, Texas’ seventh in eight games. He is batting .318 with six RBIs over his last seven games and is at .287 with 16 homers and 57 RBIs for the year. P.S. Props to Jeff Francoeur, the former Mississippi Braves star who ought to get consideration for comeback player of the year. Frenchy hit his 10th homer of the season for Philadelphia on Wednesday and is batting .276 with 35 RBIs in 214 at-bats.

03 Aug

cream of crop

Mississippi high school products dominated MLBPipeline.com’s Prospect Team of the Week for July 27-Aug. 2. The 10-member team includes DeSoto Central’s Austin Riley (who hit .393 with three homers and 13 RBIs for Atlanta’s Gulf Coast League team) at third base; Harrison Central’s Bobby Bradley (.381, four, nine in A-ball for Cleveland) at first base; and Richton’s JaCoby Jones (.409, three, eight in Double-A for Pittsburgh and Detroit) at shortstop. Also on the team is former Mississippi Braves star Jose Peraza (.435, six runs in Triple-A for Atlanta and the Los Angeles Dodgers) at second base. P.S. Ole Miss product Christian Trent and East Mississippi Community College alum LeDarious Clark will be on opposing sides in Tuesday’s Pioneer League-Northwest League All-Star Game at Spokane, Wash. This is the first All-Star matchup between the two short-season Class A leagues. Trent, a left-hander picked in the 24th round in June by Milwaukee, is 2-1 with a 4.01 ERA in seven appearances for Helena of the PL. Outfielder Clark, a 12th-rounder by Texas, is batting .307 with eight homers, 20 RBIs and 19 steals for Spokane of the NWL. Clark, currently in the throes of a 2-for-36 slump, was pulled from a game last week for not running out a pop-up but was back in the lineup the next day.

01 Aug

on the bump

Cody Reed, the former Horn Lake High and Northwest Mississippi Community College standout, was sharp in his Southern League debut on Friday, notching a win for Pensacola. Acquired by Cincinnati from Kansas City in the Johnny Cueto trade, left-hander Reed allowed five hits and one run over seven innings for the Blue Wahoos. He is now 8-7 with a 2.45 ERA for the year with three clubs over two levels. … Southern Miss product Scott Copeland has won three straight starts and four of five for Triple-A Buffalo and leads the International League with a 2.13 ERA. He has made multiple trips up to Toronto and back to Buffalo this season (see previous posts) with mixed results in his five MLB games (6.46 ERA). Still, it was a feel-good story when he made his big league debut at age 27 in his sixth pro season. … Ex-Mississippi State star Chris Stratton finally notched his first Triple-A win on July 27 for Sacramento in the San Francisco system and figures to make his next start on Sunday. Stratton, from Tupelo, is 1-3 in 10 starts despite a 3.02 ERA. He was the 20th overall pick in 2012 and has been rated a top prospect in the Giants’ system ever since. “Every year, I’ve learned something new,’’ he told milb.com. Though he isn’t on the Giants’ 40-man roster, Stratton certainly could get a call-up in September. … When right-hander Zack Bird might make his Mississippi Braves debut isn’t clear. The former Murrah star, acquired by Atlanta from the Los Angeles Dodgers in Thursday’s mega-deal, has been a starter most of his four-year minor league career but isn’t on the latest list of M-Braves probables for the next few days. The team returns to Trustmark Park in Pearl on Sunday. Bird was a Southern Miss signee before he became a rare Jackson Public Schools draftee in 2012, when the Dodgers took him in the ninth round. Bird’s career record is an ugly 16-35, including a 6-17 mark in 2014, and his ERA is pushing 5.00. But he has shown some stuff, including an upper 90s fastball. He struck out 110 batters in 118 2/3 innings in the Midwest League in 2014 and had 95 K’s in 89 innings in the California League this year. … Ole Miss alum Phil Irwin, who had been pitching in Korea, has signed a minor league deal with Texas. Irwin has made two big league appearances in seven pro seasons, one each in 2013 (Pittsburgh) and 2014 (the Rangers).

31 Jul

summer session

There’s a touch of Ole Miss-Mississippi State rivalry in the championship series of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League. Ole Miss’ Will Golsan, Nic Perkins and Will Stokes play for the Baltimore Redbirds and Mississippi State’s Cody Brown and Blake Smith for the Bethesda Big Train. The Redbirds and Big Train begin a three-game series today at Cockeysville, Md. Golsan is hitting .234, Perkins .278 (with 16 RBIs) and Stokes has a 2.12 ERA for Baltimore. Brown is batting .233 with 33 runs for Bethesda, and Smith has put up a 1.62 ERA. … Mississippi products were all over the highlights from Thursday’s Cape Cod League games. Errol Robinson of Ole Miss had three hits and three runs for Hyannis; he is still among the summer league’s batting leaders at .319. Mississippi State’s Jacob Robson, batting .318, got two hits and scored three runs for Bourne, which also got an RBI double from State’s Reid Humphreys. J.B. Woodman, another Bulldog, hit his first home run for Falmouth. And Bulldog tracks are all over the CCBL pitching stats. Dakota Hudson (1.08) and Vance Tatum (1.92), both with Hyannis, and Daniel Brown (2.13) of Cotuit rank among the league ERA leaders. … Southern Miss’ Daniel Keating, playing for Acadiana in the Texas Collegiate League, ranks second in the loop with 26 steals and fifth with a .303 average. He also has 17 RBIs and 27 runs.

31 Jul

target practice

Seth Smith likes to hit at Target Field in Minnesota. On Thursday, the Ole Miss alum from Jackson belted his fourth home run in 11 career games there, a first-inning blow that gave Seattle a lead on the Twins. Of course, Brian Dozier, the ex-Southern Miss star, likes to hit at Target Field, too. He smacked his 33rd career homer there, a leadoff shot that propelled the Twins to a five-run first inning and a 9-5 victory. Dozier, the All-Star, now has 22 homers for the season (10 at home) for Minnesota, which appears headed for an American League playoff berth that no one predicted in preseason. Seattle, on the other hand, was pegged by many to win the AL West but has had a rough go of it. At 46-57, the Mariners are a distant fourth in the division. Smith, in his first season with the M’s, has played well enough: His .263 average is right at his career mark, and he’s got nine homers and 28 RBIs in 270 at-bats. Wonder if he is on the trading block? … On a small ball note: Billy Hamilton, the Taylorsville Tornado, swiped two more bases on Thursday, running his season total to 49, 16 more than the next best in baseball. He also scored three times in Cincinnati’s 15-5 win against Pittsburgh, but his runs total of 47 ranks just 68th in MLB.

30 Jul

a kind of hush

The Washington Nationals’ clubhouse did not explode on Wednesday. Jonathan Papelbon showed up in the visitors’ digs at Miami’s Marlins Park, and everybody said all the right things, at least publicly, about the team’s addition of a new closer. “To me it’s all about winning and being in a place I’m happy,” former Mississippi State standout Papelbon said in a Washington Post story. Papelbon wasn’t happy in Philadelphia, where he was 17-for-17 in save chances for a last-place club. The Nationals’ former closer, Drew Storen, did not sound happy in comments he made on Tuesday after the trade news broke. But he pitched — and pitched well — in the eighth inning of a 7-2 win over the Marlins that boosted the first-place Nats to 53-46, 2 games ahead of the New York Mets in the National League East. Papelbon did not get in the game. Washington GM Mike Rizzo said Tuesday that the Nationals aren’t worried about the possible side effects of adding the sometimes prickly Papelbon to their clubhouse, calling him “a winner.” “He excels in pressure situations, and that’s his personality,” Rizzo told espn.com. So … all was quiet on the Papelbon front, which was a theme for the day among Mississippians in the majors. Eight hitters went a combined 3-for-19 with one run. And Ole Miss alum Drew Pomeranz, making a relief appearance for Oakland, faced three batters and didn’t retire any of them. All three scored, and his ERA jumped to 4.08.