Tag Archives: Ole Miss

29 Apr

that other draft

While Ole Miss has tumbled from the national rankings this season, Jacob Gonzalez’s MLB draft stock has remained steady. The Rebels shortstop, regarded as a top 10 pick entering this season, is rated No. 8 in MLB Pipeline’s new list of the Top 150 prospects for this summer’s draft. Gonzalez is batting .322 with seven homers and 37 RBIs for the 22-20 Rebels, last year’s national champs. The left-handed hitter, who goes 6 feet 2, 200 pounds, has a .317 career average with 37 homers in three seasons at UM. Five other players from the state are in the Top 150: No. 43 Cooper Pratt, shortstop at Magnolia Heights; No. 47 Colton Ledbetter, Mississippi State outfielder; No. 64 Kemp Alderman, Ole Miss outfielder; No. 101 Tanner Hall, Southern Miss pitcher; and No. 145 Calvin Harris, UM catcher. Ranked 11th is Hurston Waldrep, who pitched at USM in 2022 but is now at Florida. Ledbetter, a Samford transfer, has been a standout during a tough year for State, hitting .322 with 10 homers, 46 RBIs and 15 steals. Hall, last year’s Ferriss Trophy winner, is 7-3 with a 2.95 ERA for the Golden Eagles, who are battling for the Sun Belt Conference title. P.S. Lexington beat the York Revolution 5-4 Friday night in Barry Lyons’ debut (see previous post) as manager of the Counter Clocks of the independent Atlantic League. Former Delta State star Trent Giambrone went 2-for-4 for York in his ALPB debut. Harrison Central High alum and ex-big leaguer Bobby Bradley homered for Charleston in his indy ball debut. … The Chicago White Sox lost their ninth straight game Friday after MSU product Kendall Graveman gave up a ninth-inning homer in a 3-2 defeat against visiting Tampa Bay. Graveman (1-2) has a 5.06 ERA in 11 relief appearances for the 7-20 White Sox. … Tim Anderson, on a rehab assignment for the ChiSox, went 0-for-4 for Triple-A Charlotte in Game 1 of a twinbill. Also in the Knights’ lineup was Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton, the demoted big league vet who went 2-for-3 to improve his average to .186. He has three stolen bases.

28 Apr

minor matters

Putting up numbers is typically the key to advancement in the minor leagues. Several Mississippi-connected players are doing precisely that. To wit: At Triple-A Jacksonville in the Miami system, former Mississippi State and Jackson Prep standout Jake Mangum is batting .339 and slugging .500 (six extra-base hits) in 17 games. The switch-hitting outfielder is in his first season with the Marlins after being traded by the New York Mets in December. At High-Class A Beloit in the Marlins’ system, Meridian Community College and McLaurin High product Davis Bradshaw is hitting .368 (with a current six-game hit streak) in 14 games. The lefty-hitting outfielder got a look in Double-A in 2022 and is bidding for another. At Double-A Erie in Detroit’s chain, former Biloxi High star Colt Keith is hitting .300 (despite a recent skid) with three homers and 11 RBIs. The lefty-hitting third baseman is a highly rated Tigers prospect. At Low-A Kannapolis in the Chicago White Sox’s system, ex-Ole Miss star Tim Elko (see previous post) leads the Carolina League in homers (six) and RBIs (24) and is batting .362 through 17 games in his first full pro campaign. At High-A Brooklyn in the Mets’ organization, former Southern Miss standout Tyler Stuart has a 1.98 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 13 2/3 innings in three starts. The 6-foot-9 right-hander was a 2022 draftee. At Low-A Augusta in the Atlanta system, former Smithville High star Jared Johnson is 1-0 with a 1.29 in three appearances. The 2019 draftee’s progress has been slowed by injuries. P.S. Mississippi State alum Brent Rooker took Shohei Ohtani deep on Thursday and now has seven homers this season, tied with Hunter Renfroe for most in MLB by a Mississippian. Rooker, in his first season with Oakland, has 18 RBIs, tops among state-connected players, and is hitting .305.

25 Apr

hot and not

Perhaps the fourth team will be a charm for Brent Rooker. The former Mississippi State star, who has moved from Minnesota to San Diego to Kansas City to Oakland in the last 12 months, has been a bright spot in a very dull start for the A’s. Rooker hit two home runs on Monday — going back-to-back both times with Jesus Aguilar — as Oakland beat the Los Angeles Angels 11-10 in 10 innings, just the fifth win for the A’s in 23 games. Rooker, who struggled in his previous MLB stints, is batting .333 (.441 on-base percentage) with six homers and 14 RBIs in 2023. The 28-year-old outfielder has walked 10 times and struck out 10 times in 59 plate appearances over his 16 games. “I knew I could come in every day and contribute and compete at a very high level. That’s all I’m trying to do right now,” Rooker said in an mlb.com story. After winning the SEC Triple Crown and league player of the year honors at State in 2017, Rooker was drafted 35th overall by the Twins that summer. He has hit well in the minors but not so much in the big leagues — until now. … The Chicago White Sox are in freefall, and Lance Lynn, the veteran right-hander out of Ole Miss, couldn’t do anything to break it on Monday. Lynn fell to 0-3 and saw his ERA rise to 7.52 over five starts as the White Sox (7-16) lost 5-2 at Toronto. Lynn, who has 123 wins on his MLB ledger, yielded five hits, three walks and four runs in five innings against the Blue Jays. Opponents are batting .309 against Lynn, more than 60 points higher than his career average against.

23 Apr

around the horn

Names of note from a Saturday chock-full of diamond doings:
Kellum Clark, Luke Hancock, Slate Alford and Amani Larry hit home runs for Mississippi State in a hair-raising 11-10 win at Auburn.
Dustin Dickerson extended his hit streak to 17 games, but Southern Miss took one on the chin for the second straight day at Coastal Carolina, which has scored 35 times in the first two games of this key Sun Belt series.
Hunter Elliott’s much-anticipated return to the mound for Ole Miss was spoiled by LSU, which scored five times vs. Elliott in the first inning and beat the ailing Rebels 8-4 in Oxford.
Jatavis Melton rapped out three hits, including a homer, scored three times and drove in three runs to lead Jackson State to a 14-8 win at Alabama A&M.
A.J. Stinson threw a seven-inning, two-hit shutout to cap William Carey’s doubleheader sweep at Blue Mountain, running the Crusaders’ record to 34-9.
Sam Pitre belted a grand slam to propel Millsaps to a big 8-7 SAA win against Oglethorpe.
Jacob Pearson hit a walk-off grand slam to give the Double-A Mississippi Braves a split against Montgomery in a twinbill that drew an announced 5,689 to Pearl’s Trustmark Park.
Ethan Murray hit a grand slam for the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers in a win at Rocket City.
Blaze Jordan, the former DeSoto Central High slugger, went 4-for-5 with his first homer of the season for Boston’s High-Class A Greenville club.
Hunter Renfroe, former MSU standout, hit two homers and a double in a loss for the Los Angeles Angels and now has six bombs on the year, more than Shohei Ohtani or Mike Trout.
Former Biloxi Shuckers star Mauricio Dubon, filling in for injured Jose Altuve, extended his hit streak to 16 games, best active in MLB, to help Houston beat Atlanta 6-3.
Former M-Braves standout Ozzie Albies hit his fifth homer for the Braves in the loss at Truist Park.
M-Braves alum Joey Meneses put up a four-hit game for Washington.
M-Braves alum Cristian Pache hit his first homer of the year for Philadelphia and is 6-for-20 on the year with his new club.
Ex-Biloxi Shuckers star Josh Hader registered his seventh save in San Diego’s 11th win of the season.

21 Apr

puttin’ on the hits

In his second stint at Low-Class A Kannapolis, Tim Elko looks like he might be ready for the next step on the minor league ladder. The former Ole Miss slugger went 4-for-4 with two home runs on Thursday and is batting .413 with four homers and 16 RBIs for the Cannon Ballers. He also has a five-hit game during his current six-game hitting streak. A 10th-round pick by the Chicago White Sox last summer, Elko is, at 24, one of the oldest players on the Kannapolis roster. After mashing a school-record 24 homers and leading the Rebels to the national championship last year, Elko enjoyed a solid pro debut, hitting .240 with five homers between rookie ball and Kannapolis. Back with the Cannon Ballers to start this season, the 6-foot-4, 240-pound first baseman/DH is showing better plate discipline (seven walks, 17 strikeouts in 53 plate appearances). The White Sox’s High-A affiliate is in Winston-Salem. … Colt Keith, the former Biloxi High star, put up a 3-for-3 on Thursday for Double-A Erie in Detroit’s system. The 21-year-old Keith, the Tigers’ No. 4 prospect (per mlb.com), is batting .304 with a homer and seven RBIs in his first taste of the Double-A level. He is a lefty hitter who has played third and second base in his three pro seasons. … Southern Miss product Chuckie Robinson extended his hitting streak to 11 games Thursday with a knock for Triple-A Louisville in the Cincinnati system. Robinson, 28, a catcher, is batting .415 with two homers, seven RBIs and four steals in 12 games for the Bats. He got a call-up with the Reds last season, hitting a pair of homers in 25 MLB games. P.S. Ex-Delta State star Trent Giambrone, who got some big league time with the Chicago Cubs in 2021, has signed with York of the independent Atlantic League. Jacques Pucheu, a former West Harrison High and East Mississippi Community College pitcher, has signed with Southern Maryland of the Atlantic League, which starts its season next week.

20 Apr

over there

Anthony Alford is crushing it in the Korean Baseball Organization. In 49 at-bats over 12 games for KT Wiz, the ex-Petal High standout is batting .449 with six doubles, two homers, eight RBIs and 10 runs. Alford, 28, headed to the KBO last year after being released by Pittsburgh, and he hit .286 with 14 homers for KT Wiz. The former Southern Miss and Ole Miss football player began pursuing baseball full-time in 2014. Alford, who has dealt with a lot of injuries over the years, got into 102 MLB games as an outfielder with Toronto and Pittsburgh but hit just .209 with eight homers. KBO pitchers can’t quite seem to figure him out. Also in the KBO, with the SSG Landers club, is former USM star Kirk McCarty, who has posted a 1-1 record with a 4.41 ERA in three starts. McCarty reached the big leagues in 2022 with Cleveland and put up a 4.45 ERA in 13 games with the Guardians and Baltimore. Ole Miss alum Jacob Waguespack, who helped Orix win the championship in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, has been a bit wobbly through five appearances for Orix this season: 1-2, 8.31 ERA. P.S. Konnor Pilkington, the ex-Mississippi State ace, was called up from Triple-A by Cleveland on Tuesday and sent down to Columbus on Wednesday without making an appearance. The lefty made his big league debut for the Guardians in 2022 (3.88 ERA in 15 games).

17 Apr

noteworthy

Three Mississippi college products currently rank among the top 10 hitters in Triple-A: Southern Miss’ Chuckie Robinson, Mississippi State’s Jake Mangum and MSU’s Hunter Stovall. Robinson, who made his MLB debut last year with Cincinnati, is second in the International League with a .429 average (and a nine-game hit streak) at Louisville. Mangum, with Miami’s Jacksonville team, is fourth in the IL at .412. He hit his first homer of the year on Sunday. Stovall, playing at Albuquerque in the Colorado system, is 10th in the Pacific Coast League stats with a .368 average. … Other hot hitters of note: Hattiesburg’s Joe Gray, Jr., at .344 for Milwaukee’s High-Class A Midwest League club, and Ole Miss alum Tim Elko, a 2022 draftee, at .364 for the Chicago White Sox’s Low-A Carolina League team. … Ex-MSU standout Dakota Hudson, demoted to the minors by St. Louis to start this season, is 1-1 with a 2.87 ERA in three starts for Triple-A Memphis. … Former Ole Miss ace Lance Lynn, scuffling at 0-1, 7.31, with six homers allowed in 16 innings for the scuffling White Sox (6-10), goes to the bump today against Philadelphia at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago. … Bad news for Brandon Woodruff and the Milwaukee Brewers. The former State star’s stay on the injured list will be a lengthy one after he was diagnosed with a subscapular strain in his right shoulder. “I’m not going to rush this,” the Brewers ace said in published reports. Woodruff, a two-time All-Star, is 1-0 with a 1.79 ERA in two starts this season and is 42-25 career for Milwaukee. … USM alum Matt Wallner was returned to the minors after getting very little playing time with Minnesota; he went 0-for-8 with a walk during his brief call-up. Wallner debuted for the Twins last season, batting .228 with two homers in 57 at-bats, and remains one of their top prospects. … Former Ole Miss ace Drew Pomeranz has had his rehab progress halted because of a neck strain. The veteran lefty, on the shelf for San Diego since late 2021, was penciled in for a rehab appearance at Triple-A last Thursday but was scratched.

17 Apr

a battle royale

A statue honoring the legendary Ron Polk was unveiled with much fanfare on Friday. Saturday’s game drew an NCAA record on-campus crowd of 16,423 at Dudy Noble Field. It seemed only fitting that Sunday would provide something special: a compelling rubber game in a drama-filled series in Starkville between Mississippi State and Ole Miss, college baseball’s last two national champions.
Behind a tiebreaking, seventh-inning home run by Hunter Hines — his third bomb of the series — and clutch relief work from Aaron Nixon, MSU won 5-3 Sunday to take the series and cap what really was a Super Bulldog Weekend.
“What an unbelievable job we do there at the end of the game. (Nixon), that was impressive,” said State coach Chris Lemonis. “Some big at-bats. Dakota (Jordan), huge swing (on a third-inning homer). Hunter Hines … to be able to have an approach on a guy like that (Ole Miss’ Jackson Kimbrell) and hit that ball out, man, that is huge.”
Never mind that the teams entered the weekend wallowing at the bottom of the SEC standings. The three games drew some 44,000 fans and produced one thrilling moment after another. MSU emerges at 22-15 overall and 5-10 in the SEC, perhaps building some momentum for the long stretch run ahead. Ole Miss is 20-16, 3-12 SEC, with LSU lurking next weekend. If there is some consolation for the Rebels, they were 18-17 and 6-9 at this point in 2022, and we know how that season ended.
Games 1 and 2 were one-run affairs not settled until the ninth inning. Ole Miss won Friday’s opener 3-2 behind the pitching of Jack Dougherty and Mitch Murrell and homers from Jacob Gonzalez and Kemp Alderman. Down 3-1, MSU got a two-out homer in the ninth from Hines before Murrell closed out the three-hitter.
The pitching woes that have plagued both clubs this year were evident in Game 2. The Bulldogs’ Nate Dohm blew a save in the top of the ninth, and Ole Miss freshman Sam Tookoian then blew a save in the bottom half. MSU won 8-7 on a two-run, walk-off single by the dynamic freshman Jordan, triggering a wild celebration on the field and in the stands. (Yes, even Dak Prescott was going nuts.) Colton Ledbetter hit two clutch homers for State in Saturday’s game, and Hines added another.
On Sunday, Jordan gave State a 3-0 lead with a home run in the third inning off Ole Miss starter J.T. Quinn. Freshman switch-pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje, who started for the Bulldogs, took a shutout into the sixth. Ole Miss made it 3-1 in that inning on an RBI ground out by Andy Calarco, the last batter Cijntje faced.
“That was impressive to go out there and do that,” Lemonis said of Cijntje’s performance. “I’ll tip my hat. I know that’s a rival, but there are some good hitters in that (Ole Miss) lineup, and, man, you just controlled it. It was poise. It was command.”
The Rebels cut it to 3-2 in the seventh on a walk, a single and a wild pitch by reliever K.C. Hunt. On came Nixon, who yielded an RBI hit to Alderman. It was the only hit Nixon allowed. He escaped the seventh with a double-play ball and then retired the last six Rebels in succession. The junior from Texas, who also tossed a scoreless inning on Saturday, now has an 0.84 ERA over eight appearances.
Hines, a sophomore out of Madison Central who has 17 homers on the year, seized the spotlight in the bottom of the seventh, blasting a two-out, two-run shot to right field off left-hander Kimbrell. The roars at Dudy Noble were deafening, and there were more of the same when Nixon retired Rebels star Gonzalez on a line drive for the last out.

14 Apr

watch for it

There are compelling reasons to focus on Starkville and Hattiesburg this weekend but tonight, at least, cast a glance at Orlando, Fla. John Rhys Plumlee, the former Oak Grove High and Ole Miss standout, will play a baseball game for Central Florida and then rush over to the football field to play quarterback in the Knights’ spring game. The remarkably athletic Plumlee played both sports in high school and again at UM before transferring to Central Florida. Obtuse NCAA rules kept him from playing baseball for the Knights in 2022, but the outfielder has emerged as one of the club’s better players this spring, batting .302 with five homers and 12 RBIs in 32 games. As the UCF quarterback in 2022, Plumlee rushed for 861 yards, threw for 2,586 and accounted for 25 touchdowns as he steered the Knights to the American Athletic Conference title game. And, yes, he also plays a mean piano. P.S. Shout-outs to Brent Rooker and Spencer Turnbull in MLB. Mississippi State alum Rooker hit two homers for Oakland on Wednesday and is 6-for-12 with three bombs in his last three games. Madison Central product Turnbull, roughed up in his first two outings of the season for Detroit, beat Toronto, throwing five innings and yielding a lone run while punching out six.

13 Apr

two weeks notice

Two weeks — 14 days — into the MLB season, the Atlanta Braves are living up to their billing as one of the best teams — and Austin Riley is living up to his billing as one of the best players. The former DeSoto Central High standout, a 2022 All-Star, went 2-for-3 on Wednesday to lift his average to .340 as the Braves beat Cincinnati and improved to 9-4, best mark in the National League. Riley has two homers, seven RBIs and eight runs, having started every game at third base and in the 3-hole in the lineup. Hunter Renfroe, the Crystal Springs native and Mississippi State alum, also has gotten off to a hot start with yet another new team. He is batting .295 with three homers and nine RBIs as a middle-of-the-order bat for the Los Angeles Angels, who have broken out at 7-5. Ex-MSU star Adam Frazier, now with Baltimore, is hitting .273 for his new club; he earned the distinction as the first Mississippian to homer in 2023, going yard on April 2 for his only bomb to date. Nathaniel Lowe, a State alum, went deep for Texas in a loss on Wednesday and is batting .260 with two homers and 10 RBIs. Brent Rooker, the former Bulldogs slugger, got a rare start for Oakland on Wednesday, batting cleanup, and hit a three-run homer in the first inning to help the woeful A’s beat Baltimore. The much-traveled Rooker is batting .294. Former Ole Miss standout Chad Smith, just called up from Triple-A, got the win for the A’s with two innings of scoreless relief. Several Mississippi-connected pitchers have scuffled. Madison Central alum Spencer Turnbull, who had not pitched in 666 days before his 2023 debut, is 0-2 with a 13.50 ERA heading into a start for Detroit today at Toronto. Ex-Ole Miss star Lance Lynn is 0-1, 7.31, in three starts for the Chicago White Sox, and MSU product Kendall Graveman has a 5.79 ERA in five relief outings for the ChiSox. … Three Mississippians have already landed on the injured list: Corey Dickerson, Tim Anderson and Brandon Woodruff. Drew Pomeranz, the Ole Miss alum who hasn’t pitched in a big league game since August of 2021, is slated for a rehab appearance today for San Diego’s Triple-A El Paso club.