Tag Archives: Ole Miss

02 Sep

small consolation

History will show that Ocean Springs native Garrett Crochet was the losing pitcher in the 2024 Chicago White Sox’s franchise-record 107th loss. From the Small Consolation Dept.: History will also show that Crochet tied an American League record by striking out the first seven New York Mets batters he faced in Sunday’s 2-0 loss at Guaranteed Rate Field. To be sure, there have been positives for Crochet in what has been an abject disaster of a season for his team. Starting for the first time since his college days at Tennessee (2018-20), the 25-year-old left-hander made the AL All-Star team in his fourth big league campaign. He has a 3.61 ERA (but just a 6-10 record) and ranks third in the league with 188 strikeouts. He won five times in a seven-game stretch in May and June, earning AL pitcher of the month honors for June. He celebrated his last win on June 7; that’s how bad the ChiSox have been. Sunday’s strikeout streak “was cool,” Crochet said in an mlb.com piece. “Sadly, I kind of wasted a lot of pitches in that time. So it kind of ate into my pitch count ….” Now on a strict pitch limit, he threw 56, one of which Francisco Lindor smacked out of the park, the lone run Crochet allowed in 3 1/3 innings. Former Southern Miss star Chuckie Robinson was behind the plate for Crochet’s stint. … For the record, Gulfport native Bill Melton was on the 1970 White Sox team that lost 106 games, hitting 33 home runs. P.S. Ex-Mississippi State standout Justin Foscue, back in the big leagues with Texas, started at first base Sunday, walked and scored a run in the Rangers’ win over Oakland. … Ole Miss product Lance Lynn’s rehab start with Triple-A Memphis didn’t go too well: five runs, eight K’s in 3 2/3 innings; he has been on St. Louis’ injured list since July 31. … With MLB rosters expanding to 28 this month, it would be nice to see Colorado give a call to Hunter Stovall, the former State star who has been in the system since 2018. The 5-foot-6 second baseman, who hit a walk-off homer on Saturday at Triple-A Albuquerque, is batting .280 with six homers, 35 RBIs and 11 steals. He isn’t on the 40-man roster, so his chances of a promotion are slim. … Southern Miss product Matthew Etzel, who has scuffled at Double-A Montgomery since being traded by Baltimore to Tampa Bay, banged out four hits on Sunday to lift his average to .242 with four homers and 13 RBIs in 27 games. He is batting .278 with 10 homers and 45 steals overall in his first full pro season.

28 Aug

a bit of deja vu

Kemp Alderman’s pro career may be following the same path as his career at Ole Miss, where he started slowly before erupting in his final two years. The Decatur native and former Newton County Academy star hit his first home run for High-Class A Beloit on Tuesday, a game-winning shot to right-center field against Peoria. Alderman has hit safely in nine of his last 11 games for the Sky Carp and is batting .256 with nine RBIs and seven runs in 22 games since moving up. He hit .270 with five homers and 30 RBIs in 33 games in Low-A ball this year after batting just .205 with a single bomb in 34 games at that level in his pro debut. Alderman started quietly as a freshman at Ole Miss, rarely playing, then hit .286 with 11 homers for the 2022 College World Series winner. In 2023, he put up one of the best seasons in school history, winning the Ferriss Trophy and earning second-team All-America recognition while batting .376 with 19 homers and 61 RBIs. Miami drafted him in the second round — 47th overall — last summer. At 6 feet 3, 250 pounds, the 22-year-old outfielder has been compared to ex-Mississippi State star and current big league slugger Hunter Renfroe, who has 189 career MLB bombs. Alderman has that kind of power potential, and it is starting to show. Alderman is ranked as the Marlins’ No. 13 prospect by MLB Pipeline. P.S. Ole Miss alum James McArthur threw two hitless innings, MSU product Chris Stratton worked a clean ninth and former Bulldogs standout Adam Frazier scored a run as Kansas City beat Cleveland 6-1 and moved into a tie for the American League Central lead.

27 Aug

just stuff

Nick Sandlin, former All-America pitcher out of Southern Miss, made his first pro start on Monday for Cleveland and fared well: two strikeouts, two walks and a foul out in his one inning. However, the Guardians lost the game to visiting Kansas City and then lost again in the nightcap as their lead in the American League Central slipped to 1 game over the Royals. Sandlin was a lockdown reliever for two years at USM, moved to the rotation for his junior year (2018) and went 10-1 with a 1.06 ERA. He won the Ferriss Trophy, C-USA’s pitcher of the year award and a national player of the year honor. The Guardians drafted him and moved him back to the bullpen, and the right-hander has a 3.26 ERA in 198 MLB games. … Kansas City played without Mississippi State products Hunter Renfroe (on the injured list), Adam Frazier (sitting with a .211 average) and Chris Stratton (5.23 ERA), and ex-Ole Miss standout James McArthur (no longer closing) worked one scoreless inning in Game 1. Frazier is in the lineup tonight for Game 3 of the big series. … Colt Keith has eight RBIs in his last four games, all wins by Detroit. The rookie out of Biloxi High is batting .266 with 12 homers and 52 RBIs. … Ex-USM star Matt Wallner homered in the ninth inning of Minnesota’s loss to Atlanta. His 10th blast of the season was his first off a left-hander (Dylan Lee). … Justin Steele, former George County High standout, is back on the bump today for the Chicago Cubs against Pittsburgh. Steele (4-5, 3.07, overall and 2-0, 1.66, in August) has had problems with Pittsburgh’s Connor Joe, batting .538 with a homer in 15 plate appearances vs. the left-hander, per Baseball Reference’s Matchups to Watch. … Ole Miss alum Lance Lynn, on the IL (knee injury) since July 31 for St. Louis, is expected to make a rehab start this week with Triple-A Memphis. Lynn (6-4, 4.06) threw about 75 pitches in a live practice session Monday, reports said. … Ex-DeSoto Central star Blaze Jordan, out since Aug. 10 after getting hit in the face by a pitch, was activated today by Double-A Portland. The Boston Red Sox’s No. 26 prospect is hitting .253 with seven homers and 51 RBIs. … Mississippi Braves right-hander Lucas Braun was named to MLB Pipeline’s Prospect Team of the Week after allowing just one run with 20 strikeouts over 13 2/3 innings in two starts last week. Atlanta’s No. 21 prospect is 3-1 with a 2.36 ERA in 10 Double-A starts.

20 Aug

tagging up

Atlanta’s season of woe continued on Monday when Austin Riley was placed on the injured list with a fractured hand. The former DeSoto Central High star was batting .256 with 19 home runs and playing Gold Glove-level defense — did you see the play he made on Friday? — for a wounded Braves team (66-58) that is still very much in the playoff hunt in the National League. It has been a painful year generally for Mississippians in the majors. Riley joins Jordan Westburg, Dakota Hudson, Kendall Graveman, J.P. France, Brandon Woodruff, Spencer Turnbull, Lance Lynn and Jacob Waguespack on the injured list. In addition, Nathaniel Lowe, Justin Steele, Justin Foscue, Hurston Waldrep, Ethan Small, Hunter Renfroe and Nick Fortes have done time on the IL. … Fortes, an Ole Miss product, came off the IL on Sunday for Miami and recorded the final out in a 8-9-4-2 double play, the first in the big leagues in the modern era. He also homered on Monday — his third — and is batting .388 over his last 15 games. … Foscue, back in the minors, had a four-hit, four-RBI game for Triple-A Round Rock on Saturday. Rated Texas’ No. 7 prospect, the ex-Mississippi State star is batting .277 with five homers for the Express; he is 2-for-19 in his limited MLB time this year. … Biloxi High alum Colt Keith, 23, not that far removed from his youth league days, went 3-for-4 with a game-tying run in Detroit’s 3-2 win over the New York Yankees in Sunday’s Little League Classic at Williamsport, Pa. … Ex-State standout Hunter Renfroe went 0-for-24 over a six-game stretch before going 3-for-9 on Saturday and Sunday for Kansas City in back-to-back wins against Cincinnati. … Belated kudos to former Biloxi Shuckers standout Weston Wilson, who became the first Philadelphia Phillies rookie to hit for the cycle when he did so last Thursday. Wilson, who played in Biloxi in 2018-19, homered in his first big league at-bat for the Phillies last August. … The Mississippi Braves pounded Biloxi 11-1 on Sunday at Keesler Federal Park (formerly MGM Park) as Keshawn Ogans hit his first homer of the season for the M-Braves. The M-Braves won five of six in the series. Atlanta’s Double-A team, which is moving to Columbus, Ga., in 2025, starts its next-to-last homestand Tuesday at Trustmark Park vs. Chattanooga.

16 Aug

slamming the door

Former Southern Miss standout Ryan Och shared in a bit of history with the San Antonio Missions on Thursday. The left-hander, in his fourth season in the San Diego system, got the last four outs (on 11 pitches) in a three-man no-hitter, the 16th in San Antonio’s long minor league history. Och has a 3.10 ERA in 12 appearances for the Double-A Missions and a 4.02 with two saves overall in 2024. He was a key bullpen arm for USM in 2021, posting an 8-0 record with a 1.27 ERA and a ton of strikeouts for a 40-21 team that reached the title game of the Oxford Regional. San Diego drafted Och in the seventh round that summer. In 59 career pro games, he has a 3.77 ERA and 141 strikeouts in 88 1/3 innings. … In Thursday’s game, an 8-0 win for the Missions against Amarillo, Ole Miss alum Kevin Graham went 0-for-3 (three strikeouts) for the Sod Poodles, an Arizona affiliate. (He didn’t face Och.) Graham, who played on UM’s 2022 national title team, is batting .222 in his first Double-A campaign.

13 Aug

what might have been

There were no box scores in the newspapers on this date 30 years ago. The MLB players’ strike started on Aug. 12, 1994, and the season never resumed. No playoffs. No World Series. Zip. Perhaps no team was more devastated by the strike and its fallout than the Montreal Expos, a club loaded with talent — including former Ole Miss star Jeff Fassero – that had the best record (74-40) in MLB. Left-hander Fassero, in his fourth big league season, was 8-6 with a 2.99 ERA when the season was halted. He was part of a staff that included Pedro Martinez, Ken Hill and John Wetteland. The lineup featured Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Moises Alou and Cliff Floyd. Felipe Alou was the manager. They were good. Their fans were left to wonder what might have been for a club that only once had made the postseason since its birth in 1969. Some say the lost season was the beginning of the end for the Expos in Montreal, where they never drew well. Ownership began to purge the roster in 1995. Fassero left after the ’96 season. The franchise shifted to Washington in 2005. Fassero pitched 16 years all told in the majors, winning 121 games and striking out 1,643 batters. A fine career. He pitched for three teams that made the postseason, though it’s safe to say none were as talented as the ’94 Expos. P.S. Will Wagner, son of former Jackson Generals standout Billy Wagner, went 3-for-4 in his big league debut Monday for Toronto.

11 Aug

rising to challenge

Tim Elko is fitting in just fine at the Triple-A level. The former Ole Miss standout belted a pair of home runs for Charlotte on Saturday and now has five in 11 games. He is batting .311 and slugging .667 with eight RBIs and 10 runs for the Knights. If the parent Chicago White Sox – who are awful and fairly desperate for offensive punch – decide to hold open auditions down the stretch, they might give Elko a call. He isn’t on the 40-man roster and isn’t a Top 30 prospect, but he has handled every test in pro ball so far. A 10th-round pick in 2022, the 25-year-old first baseman/DH has posted a .288 career average with 47 homers in the minors. He has 14 bombs between Double-A and Triple-A this season. The 6-foot-3, 250-pound Elko left Oxford in 2022 after blasting a school-record 24 homers during the Rebels’ amazing run to the national championship. They erected a statue of Elko outside Swayze Field that confirms his status as one of the most popular players ever to suit up for UM. P.S. Ex-Mississippi State star Brent Rooker hit his 29th homer for Oakland on Saturday, the only run of the game in the A’s win against Toronto. If he weren’t stuck with the lowly A’s, Rooker (.290, 82 RBIs, .951 OPS) would likely get strong American League MVP consideration. … Biloxi Shuckers alum Devin Williams, who came off the injured list on July 28, notched his first save of the season, punching out the side in Milwaukee’s 1-0 win over Cincinnati. Williams has a 2.25 ERA with eight K’s in four games for the first-place Brewers. He had 36 saves in 2023.

07 Aug

surfing the wire

Several Mississippi products were on the move in the minors the past couple days, including 2024 MLB draftees Cam Schuelke, Cole Tolbert and Colby Holcombe being assigned to Class A clubs in their respective organizations. Schuelke, the submarine-style right-hander from Mississippi State, was assigned to Low-A Lynchburg by Cleveland after going in the 19th round of last month’s draft. Schuelke was 5-3 with two saves and a 4.21 ERA in 32 games at State this season. Tolbert, who had a 7.71 ERA in six appearances at Ole Miss, was sent to Low-A Salem by Boston, which drafted him in the 18th round. Tolbert, from Laurel, was on Pearl River Community College’s national title team in 2022. Holcombe, an MSU and Northeast Mississippi CC alum, was placed at Low-A Dunedin by Toronto, which took him in the ninth round. MSU product Eric Cerantola, a fourth-year pro, was promoted to Triple-A Omaha by Kansas City; he had a 2.78 ERA in 24 games in Double-A. Former Bulldogs standout K.C. Hunt moved from High-A Wisconsin to Double-A Biloxi in the Milwaukee chain; he was 7-1 with a 1.95 ERA at two levels of A-ball this season. Ex-MSU star Cade Smith, 6-6 with a 3.47 ERA in Low-A ball, was promoted to High-A Hudson Valley by the New York Yankees. And Landon Tompkins, a Northwest Rankin and Hinds CC product, moved up to High-A Greensboro in the Pittsburgh system; he had a 3.86 ERA and seven saves at Low-A Bradenton.

03 Aug

transaction watch

As part of a big wave of minor league transactions on Friday, former Mississippi State star Tanner Allen was released by Miami. He was on the Double-A Pensacola roster but playing at Low-Class A Jupiter on an injury rehab assignment. The lefty-hitting outfielder was batting .225 with two homers in 50 games this season and .229 for his career. Allen was a national player of the year, the SEC’s player of the year and the state’s Ferriss Trophy winner in 2021, when he helped MSU win the national title. He was a fourth-round pick by the Marlins that summer. Also released were Ole Miss alum Mike Mayers, a former big leaguer pitching at Triple-A Buffalo in the Toronto system; ex-UM infielder Justin Bench (San Francisco system); and Itawamba Community College alum Kyle Crigger (Miami system). … Meanwhile, former Ole Miss star Kemp Alderman was promoted by Miami from Jupiter to High-A Beloit and went 2-for-4 in his debut. The 2023 Ferriss Trophy winner was batting .270 with five homers and 30 RBIs in Low-A ball. P.S. After being outscored 25-3 in the first three games of the series at Trustmark Park, the Mississippi Braves rallied from a five-run deficit to beat Tennessee 7-6 Friday on a walk-off knock by Justin Dean in the ninth. Dean’s hit followed a walk, a steal and a wild pitch by former Delta State standout Dalton Moats, who took the loss for the Chicago Cubs’ Double-A club. … Former Mississippi Valley State (and Rust College) standout Dreylin Holmes has emerged as one of the top hitters in the MLB Draft League. He is hitting .400 with four homers, nine RBIs and 14 runs in 13 games for Mahoning Valley. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound outfielder reportedly hit a 461-foot homer on Thursday; he hit 29 homers in three seasons for the Delta Devils. … Brandon High’s Jamaurion McQueen is slated to participate in the Hank Aaron Invitational today at Truist Park in Atlanta. The event is part a diversity-focused development program for prep players around the country. McQueen, 6-3, 195, an outfielder/pitcher, is a Southern Miss commit.

02 Aug

three shining moments

Around the minors on Thursday, Tanner Hall pitched an immaculate inning, Blaze Jordan got a walk-off hit and Gunnar Hoglund made an impressive debut. Hall, the former Southern Miss All-America, pitching for Low-Class A Fort Myers in the Minnesota chain, struck out the side on nine pitches in the fifth inning against St. Lucie. What’s more, Hall threw six innings — his longest outing of the year — struck out nine all told and got the win in a 7-2 game. The 2022 Ferriss Trophy winner, a fourth-round pick in 2023, is 3-0 with a 5.22 ERA in 14 games in his debut season. Jordan, the ex-DeSoto Central High star, was 0-for-5 when he stepped into the box in the 10th inning for Double-A Portland (Boston), then delivered an RBI hit to give the Sea Dogs a 6-5 win over Erie. Boston’s No. 19 prospect per MLB Pipeline, Jordan is hitting .252 with 41 RBIs in what has been an uneven season. He was riding a 17-game hit streak when he broke a finger in mid-May and missed a month. The right-handed hitting first baseman/third baseman hit 18 homers in 2023 but has just six this season, only one since June 21. Ole Miss product Hoglund, Oakland’s No. 17 prospect, made his first appearance for Triple-A Las Vegas, pitched a 1-2-3 first inning with two K’s and worked five more innings against Albuquerque. He yielded five hits and three runs, fanned seven and got a no-decision. The 6-foot-4 right-hander, the 19th overall pick in 2021, was 9-4 with a 2.84 ERA in Double-A this season. P.S. Hoglund was one of three Mississippians pegged by MLB Pipeline as pitching prospects to watch down the stretch. The others were ex-Mississippi State star Cade Smith (6-6, 3.48, at Low-A Tampa in the New York Yankees’ system) and former Bulldogs closer Landon Sims (1.21 ERA, 32 strikeouts in 22 1/3 innings at High-A Hillsboro in the Arizona system).