Tag Archives: Padres

29 Sep

another wow moment

The numbers are in. MLB’s Statcast numbers, that is, on Hunter Renfroe’s ginormous home run, the one that went where no ball has gone before – the roof of the Western Metal Supply Co. building beyond the left-field wall at San Diego’s Petco Park. Statcast put the distance of Wednesday night’s blast at 434 feet and the exit velocity of the ball off the bat at 109 mph. “I think we all know he’s got a ton of raw power. I wasn’t expecting that,” Padres manager Andy Green told mlb.com. Former Mississippi State star Renfroe, 6 feet 1, 220 pounds, now has four homers in 21 MLB at-bats, with 12 RBIs and six runs. No doubt there are some old Copiah Academy fans who are saying today, “Oh yeah, we saw this coming.” Renfroe hit a Mississippi private school-record 20 bombs for Copiah as a senior just six short years ago. He hit 15 homers his junior year at the Gallman school. He started slowly at State but flexed his muscles as a junior in 2013, belting 16 homers (while batting .345) and earning All-America honors. He also won the Ferriss Trophy that year and was drafted in the first round by the Padres. He hit 77 minor league homers before crashing The Show on Sept. 21. Elsewhere in MLB: Ole Miss product Seth Smith drove in two runs to help Seattle crush Houston 12-4 and hang 2 games out of an American League wild card berth. … Jarrod Dyson, the former Southwest Mississippi Community College star, got two hits, two runs and his 29th steal of the year as Kansas City beat Minnesota 5-2. But Ned Yost’s Royals were eliminated from AL wild card contention just the same. … The fingerprints of former Mississippi Braves were all over Atlanta’s 12-2 win against Philadelphia. The incredible Freddie Freeman extended his hit streak to 30 games; rookie Dansby Swanson – who can play a little, too – went 2-for-3 with two RBIs and three runs; Daniel Castro had three hits and three RBIs; Mallex Smith scored a run; John Gant threw a scoreless inning; and Rio Ruiz got his first big league knock, a triple. … And a blast from another past: John Jaso’s cycle was the first by a Pittsburgh player since former Jackson Generals star Daryle Ward turned the trick in 2004. Ward had five career triples.

28 Sep

‘boy can play’

This audition, if that’s what it is, is going rather nicely for Hunter Renfroe. The Crystal Springs native and Mississippi State alum belted two homers and drove in a San Diego rookie record seven runs on Tuesday in a 7-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. “Boy can play,” winning pitcher Paul Clemens, the former Mississippi Braves star, told mlb.com. “Boy can play the game.” Renfroe, who hit 30 bombs in Triple-A this year, is 6-for-17 with three homers and eight RBIs since his call-up. His second homer on Tuesday was a grand slam and came against fellow Mississippian Louis Coleman. Renfroe is wearing No. 71; he figures to have a lower number next season, when he figures to start in right field for the Padres. Elsewhere in MLB: McComb’s Jarrod Dyson, batting leadoff for Kansas City, sparked the Royals’ 4-3, 11-inning win over Minnesota, scoring a run and driving in a run. The Royals remain alive, barely, in the American League wild card race. … Former Ole Miss star Chris Coghlan, bidding for a spot on the Chicago Cubs’ postseason roster, went 2-for-4 with three RBIs in a 6-4 win that eliminated Pittsburgh from postseason contention. Ex-State standout Adam Frazier, having a fine rookie year (.299) for the Pirates, drew a walk and scored a run. … Texas, 93-65 and vying for best record in the AL, beat Milwaukee 6-4, with State product Mitch Moreland contributing a 1-for-4 effort and flawless defense at first base. … UM alum Seth Smith drove in a run for Seattle, but the Mariners squandered a lead and lost to Houston 8-4 in a key game between AL wild card contenders. … In a game that meant essentially nothing, East Central CC alum Tim Anderson went 3-for-5 with his eighth homer to power the Chicago White Sox to a 13-6 victory against Tampa Bay, which got two hits from Meridian CC’s Corey Dickerson. … Boston announced that ex-Ole Miss standout Drew Pomeranz (sore forearm) won’t start again this season and will work out of the bullpen in the postseason — if he makes the roster. Left-hander Pomeranz, who has worked a career-high in innings between San Diego and Boston, is 3-5 with a 4.68 ERA for the Red Sox.

25 Sep

highs and lows

It was a day of firsts for Hunter Renfroe. The former Mississippi State standout, batting cleanup for San Diego for the first time on Saturday, hit his first MLB home run and his first double. Renfroe’s memorable homer, in his fourth game, came against San Francisco ace Madison Bumgarner, no less, a solo shot off a 93-mph fastball on a 1-2 pitch. Renfroe, playing right field, also committed his first error, though it was inconsequential in the Padres’ loss. … Billy Hamilton has been knocked from his perch atop the MLB stolen base leaders. While the Taylorsville High product has been idled by injury, Milwaukee’s Jonathan Villar has caught and passed him. Villar got his 59th bag on Saturday. Hamilton, out for the season (oblique injury) in Cincinnati, will finish with 58, a career-high. He got 57 last year and 56 in 2014. … Meridian Community College alum Corey Dickerson continues to rake for Tampa Bay, the one American League East team with no postseason shot. Dickerson, in his first year with the Rays, is batting .386 over his last 15 games with five homers, 10 RBIs and seven runs. With 23 homers on the season, he is one shy of his career-best, set two years ago in Colorado. His 36 doubles are already a best.

21 Sep

in focus

Adam Frazier was a catalyst for Pittsburgh in a 6-3 win at Milwaukee on Tuesday night that kept the Pirates’ faint playoff hopes alive. The Mississippi State alum, batting leadoff and playing left field, went 3-for-5 and scored twice. He led off the game with a single off Matt Garza and scored the first run as the Pirates took a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Frazier doubled and scored in the fifth, when Pittsburgh again scored twice to go up 5-2. Frazier, a versatile rookie who doesn’t play regularly, is batting .351 with two homers, nine RBIs and 17 runs in 55 games. Pittsburgh, managed by former Jackson Mets skipper Clint Hurdle, is 75-75, 4.5 games out in the National League wild card chase with four teams ahead of it. P.S. Ex-State star Hunter Renfroe, the Pacific Coast League MVP, reportedly has been called up by the San Diego Padres and could make his MLB debut tonight against Arizona at Petco Park. … T.J. House, the Picayune High product, has been designated for assignment by Cleveland, which needed to clear a roster spot for prospect Adam Plutko. Left-hander House spent most of 2016 in Triple-A, appearing in just four big league games. House, who’ll be 27 later this month, was 5-3 with a 3.98 ERA for Columbus and pitched even better after he moved to the bullpen in July. He is 5-7, 4.44 over parts of three MLB seasons. He’ll pitch again, somewhere.

20 Sep

watch for it

A sliver of the baseball spotlight will be trained tonight on Memphis’ AutoZone Park, where Hunter Renfroe will lead El Paso against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in a one-game showdown for the Triple-A championship. Renfroe, the ex-Mississippi State star from Crystal Springs, hit .306 with 30 home runs and 105 RBIs and won Pacific Coast League MVP honors with the Chihuahuas, a San Diego affiliate. International League champ SWB, a New York Yankees affiliate, is managed by former Jackson Mets star Al Pedrique. Both clubs feature several top prospects. Jonathan Holder, another MSU product, spent part of this season with SWB but is now in the big leagues. Renfroe, rated the Padres’ No. 3 prospect by mlb.com, may be in line for a call-up to The Show, but he says all he is focused on at the moment is his current team and tonight’s game. “San Diego will always be there, and when the time comes for them to make a decision, I’ll be here,” he told The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. The NBC Sports Network will televise the 7:05 game. P.S. For the first time in his seven seasons in the majors, Mitch Moreland was ejected from a game. Former State standout Moreland got tossed in the fourth inning Monday by home-plate umpire Kerwin Danley after “disputing,” while walking away, a called third strike during Texas’ game against the Los Angeles Angels. “It was obviously a pitch I didn’t agree with,” Moreland said in an mlb.com article. The Rangers won 3-2 in walk-off fashion, reducing their magic number for clinching the American League West to 3.

12 Sep

waiting game

The El Paso Chihuahuas’ season goes on, which apparently means Hunter Renfroe’s much-anticipated big league debut is on hold. Former Mississippi State star Renfroe, the Triple-A Pacific Coast League MVP, hit a go-ahead home run on Saturday that propelled El Paso into the PCL Championship Series, which will begin on Tuesday. When San Diego traded Melvin Upton and Matt Kemp in late July, it appeared it was clearing space in the outfield for prospects like Renfroe, who is among the Padres’ most highly regarded. The 2013 first-round pick has had a big year with the bat in the hitter-friendly PCL: .306, 30 homers, 34 doubles, 105 RBIs, .557 slugging percentage. And he’s also a good right fielder with a plus arm. If the Padres wait until El Paso’s playoff run is over to promote Renfroe, he’d still have a couple of weeks to audition for a regular job in 2017. Eight Mississippians (natives or college alums) have debuted in MLB in 2016: Chad Girodo, Chris Stratton, Tim Anderson, Cody Reed, Adam Frazier, Mike Mayers, JaCoby Jones and Jonathan Holder. P.S. Former Southern Miss standout Bradley Roney got the save in Saturday’s clincher as Triple-A Gwinnett beat Columbus 5-4 to advance to the International League finals. Roney is 4-for-4 in save chances with a 3.57 ERA and three wins in 27 games for the G-Braves this season. He had a 2.82 in 17 games for the Double-A Mississippi Braves, who are now in the Southern League title series. Atlanta’s low-A Rome club reached the South Atlantic League finals, fueled in part by DeSoto Central product Austin Riley, who went 3-for-10 with four RBIs in the first round series. Riley, Atlanta’s top pick in 2015, is batting .270 with 20 homers and 80 RBIs.

01 Sep

three things

In a home run-mad month in the major leagues, nobody hit more than Brian Dozier, the pride of Itawamba AHS and Southern Miss. Dozier hit his 13th August bomb on Wednesday in Minnesota’s 8-4 loss to Cleveland. In Twins history, only Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew hit more homers in a month (14 in June 1964). Dozier has 32 on the year and 107 in his MLB career. This from a 5-foot-11, 200-pound second baseman who hit 16 homers in his four-season minor league career and 16 in four years at USM. Nobody saw this coming – or did they? “There’s not a whole lot that the guy can’t do,” USM coach Scott Berry recently told WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg. Berry said he could tell Dozier was a special player when he won the starting shortstop job as a true freshman. … In his second big league game, former Richton High star JaCoby Jones led off the ninth inning with a double and then scored the game-winning run for Detroit, diving across home plate on a sac fly to beat the Chicago White Sox 3-2. Tyler Collins’ fly ball to left with one out wasn’t deep, so Jones and third-base coach Dave Clark, the former Shannon High and Jackson State star, had to make a snap judgement. “I really couldn’t understand (Clark),” Jones told mlb.com. “I’m pretty sure he was just saying, ‘Go, you’ve gotta run.’ I was going to go anyway, regardless, unless he was just (imploring) me to stop.” Jones is 4-for-8 with two RBIs and three runs for the Tigers, who are battling for a playoff berth. … Hunter Renfroe, the former Mississippi State standout from Crystal Springs (and Copiah Academy), belted his 29th homer for Triple-A El Paso. The right fielder is hitting .306 with 104 RBIs and 94 runs in 128 games. Certainly, he is ready for a big league look. But San Diego reportedly will wait until El Paso’s season is over to call up Renfroe. The Chihuahuas have five regular season games remaining and then the Pacific Coast League championship series.

06 Aug

tool time

So, Pacific Coast League managers and coaches really like ex-Mississippi State star Hunter Renfroe. He was rated the Most Exciting Player, the Best Hitter and the Best Outfield Arm in the Triple-A league in Baseball America’s recently released poll on the top tools in the minors and majors. Renfroe is hitting .321 with 27 home runs, 93 RBIs and 16 outfield assists for El Paso; he is expected to be a September call-up by San Diego. Ole Miss alum Stuart Turner, now in the Minnesota system, was rated the Best Defensive Catcher in the Double-A Southern League, and Harrison Central High product Bobby Bradley (Cleveland) got the nod as the Best Power Prospect in the Class A Carolina League. The Mississippi Braves’ infield got a lot of love from Southern League managers and coaches. Dansby Swanson was rated the Best Defensive Shortstop, Ozzie Albies the Best Defensive Second Baseman and Johan Camargo — who has played second, short and third — the Best Infield Arm. In addition, Albies was tagged the Most Exciting Player. Not surprisingly, McComb’s Jarrod Dyson (Kansas City) and Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton (Cincinnati) were ranked Fastest Baserunner in the AL and NL. … On the subject of standout tools, former M-Braves star Jeff Francoeur doesn’t show up in the NL poll for Best Outfield Arm, perhaps because he doesn’t play everyday. But he gunned down a runner for Atlanta on Friday night and now has seven assists for the season and a remarkable 133 in his 12 big league campaigns. P.S. Wondering how former Ole Miss star Mike Mayers has fared since returning to Triple-A after his rocky MLB debut? Not that great. Mayers has yielded 10 runs in 14 2/3 innings over three starts (two losses) for Memphis; he is now 3-4 with a 3.36 ERA. Mayers made an emergency start for St. Louis on July 24 and gave up nine runs in 1 1/3 innings. Think the Cardinals miss Lance Lynn, the UM product out for the season after Tommy John surgery? Lynn won 60 games over the previous four seasons, making 126 starts overall and registering more than 175 innings in each year.

28 Jul

charting the stars

Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies, the keystone combo of the Mississippi Braves, check in at No. 5 and No. 19 in MLBPipeline’s refreshed ranking of the game’s Top 100 prospects. (Baseball America had them at seven and 17 in its midseason Top 100 released earlier this month.) Swanson, the shortstop and 2015 No. 1 overall draft pick (by Arizona), is batting .260 with seven home runs and 38 RBIs in his first Double-A Tour. Albies, who has shifted from short to second base, is batting a sweet .364. Both might be in line for a September appearance in Atlanta. Left-hander Sean Newcomb, 5-7 with a 4.57 ERA for the M-Braves, is ranked 60th in the chart published on mlb.com. Former Biloxi Shuckers Orlando Arcia (13) and Josh Hader (45) are also on the list, as is current Shuckers outfielder Brett Phillips (78). Mississippi State alum Hunter Renfroe, having a huge year at Triple-A El Paso (San Diego system), is ranked No. 52. Ex-Northwest Mississippi Community College star Cody Reed, currently pitching in the big leagues – and scuffling — with Cincinnati, is No. 59, and Harrison Central High product Bobby Bradley (in A-ball with Cleveland) is 82nd. P.S. Ex-Petal High standout Anthony Alford, one of Toronto’s top prospects, isn’t in the mlb.com Top 100; he’s 86th in the BA ranking. He has had a rough year that has included two stints on the disabled list. But, the 22-year-old outfielder is heating up, batting .371 over his last 10 games. He had three hits (two triples and a double) for Class A Dunedin on Wednesday and is at .217 with four homers, 26 RBIs and 12 steals for the year. He batted .298 in 2015, his first full pro season. “This season has been a good learning season for me because I’ve never had to deal with failure,” the former Mr. Baseball told milb.com.

13 Jul

coast to coast …

A visit to Hawaii is one thing, but a trip to the MLB All-Star Game, your first as a player, is a different level of paradise. After learning he had made the National League team as an injury replacement, former Ole Miss star Drew Pomeranz was forced to cancel a few plans he had made for the break. “My fiance and I were supposed to go to Hawaii to plan our wedding, but … whatever,” he told mlb.com, reportedly with a laugh. “It was a good excuse.” Pomeranz, now with San Diego, pitched a scoreless fourth inning in the NL’s 4-2 loss Tuesday night at Petco Park. He retired Salvador Perez, Jose Altuve and Mike Trout sandwiched around a Jackie Bradley single. “It’s pretty special to have your first one (All-Star Game) anywhere, but even more so here,” he said after the game, played before a crowd of 42,386. Pomeranz, in his first season with the Padres, has an 8-7 record and a 2.47 ERA in 17 starts with 115 punchouts. … In another televised game on Tuesday, played on the Atlantic coast before a much smaller crowd, Southern Miss’ Kirk McCarty delivered a gem for Orleans of the Cape Cod League. The left-hander tossed 6 2/3 shutout innings against Falmouth, allowing just three hits with five walks and five strikeouts. He got a no-decision but lowered his ERA to 1.98 in five games in the college summer league. His Firebirds won the game 2-1 (on a walk-off homer) before 1,381 at Eldredge Park in Orleans, Mass. … And on yet another coast, the Gulf, Lucas Sims of the Mississippi Braves notched his first Southern League win of the year Tuesday with a strong outing at Mobile. Sims worked 6 2/3 and yielded one run on six hits and two walks with seven K’s in a 2-1 victory before an announced 718 at Hank Aaron Stadium. Sims, Atlanta’s top pick in the 2012 draft and No. 10 prospect, started the season with the M-Braves before getting a promotion to Triple-A Gwinnett, where he went 2-6, 7.56 and got sent back on June 17. He is 1-2, 2.95 in seven starts for the M-Braves.