Tag Archives: Petal High

13 Feb

minor matters

Former Petal High star Anthony Alford and ex-Ole Miss standout Drew Pomeranz have found new teams for 2024, Alford signing a minor league contract with Cincinnati and Pomeranz agreeing to a minor league deal with the Los Angeles Angels, per reports. … Alford, a 29-year-old outfielder, spent the last two seasons in the Korean Baseball Organization, batting .288 with 29 homers overall. He hit .209 over scattered parts of six MLB campaigns, including two games with Pittsburgh in 2022. He was a third-round draft pick out of Petal by Toronto in 2013, but his baseball career went on the back burner while he played football at Southern Miss and Ole Miss. Alford did not receive an invitation to the Reds’ big league camp in Arizona, according to redlegnation.com, but surely will get a look there. … Pomeranz, 35, who has been injured much of the last two years, reportedly will get a non-roster invite to the Angels’ Arizona camp. The tall left-hander has appeared in 289 MLB games, posted a 3.91 ERA, won a World Series ring and earned an All-Star game nod. A former fifth overall draftee (2010), he had a 1.75 ERA with San Diego in 2021. His four-year, $34 million contract with the Padres expired after last season.

28 Sep

bright spot

Buried in the box score of a dreary performance by the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday there is a bright spot. Petal High alumnus Anthony Alford went 2-for-4 and scored the Pirates’ lone run (on a wild pitch) in a 13-1 loss to Cincinnati. Since getting a second chance with the Bucs this season, Alford has made the most of it. The 27-year-old outfielder is batting .300 (.378 on-base percentage) over his past 15 games. He has boosted his season average to .229 and has five homers, 10 RBIs, 13 runs and five stolen bases in 43 games. In four previous MLB trials, dating back to his debut with Toronto in 2017, Alford had never played more than 18 games. Injuries — and poor performance — have hounded him. After an awful start with Pittsburgh this season, Alford was designated for assignment, taken off the 40-man roster and shipped to the minors in April. He responded by batting .307 with 14 homers at Triple-A Indianapolis. When the Pirates had a need in early August, they brought Alford back. “That’s never an easy thing to do,” he recently told dkpittsburghsports.com. “Overcoming that, staying positive, making those adjustments.” He made a brief detour to the injured list in mid-August but has managed to stay healthy since. He’s likely fighting for a 2022 job. Pittsburgh keeps running him out there, which is a good sign.

26 May

welcome back

Back in the big leagues for the first time since last September, Petal’s Demarcus Evans looked ready for duty on Tuesday night. The 24-year-old right-hander struck out four of the seven batters he faced, including Justin Upton and Anthony Rendon, and walked just one in two innings of scoreless relief for Texas in its 11-5 loss to the Los Angeles Angels. Punchouts are kind of a thing for Evans, who has averaged 13.9 per nine innings over a minor league career that began in 2015. Evans debuted in the majors in 2020, famously yielded a homer to the first batter he saw — guy named Albert Pujols — but didn’t allow another run over four innings. A lat strain set the 6-foot-5, 265-pound Evans back in spring training. He tuned up at Triple-A Round Rock this month, recording 16 K’s in 7 2/3 innings with a 2.35 ERA. Injuries to a couple of Texas pitchers opened the door for Evans’ return. He might just stick.

24 Sep

a piece of history

Your first big league home run is going to be memorable. When it’s a walk-off bomb, in the 15th inning, well, that qualifies as historic. Former Petal High standout Anthony Alford accomplished that feat for Toronto on Monday night, reportedly becoming just the second player in modern history to hit a walk-off in the 15th inning or later for his first career homer. “It couldn’t happen to a better kid. Everybody was so happy for him,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo told mlb.com after the 11-10 win against Baltimore. Alford had entered the game in the ninth inning as a pinch runner. The homer came on what was Alford’s 21st at-bat of the season. He has had just 48 big league ABs spread over the past three seasons. “I really just try to enjoy the moment,” Alford told mlb.com. “Because honestly, you never know when it will happen again.” The 25-year-old former Mr. Baseball has been on the Blue Jays’ prospect charts since 2012, when he was drafted in the third round despite his commitment to play college football (first at Southern Miss, then Ole Miss). He turned to baseball fulltime in 2015. He is a .265 hitter – with 34 homers and 114 steals – in a minor league career full of ups and downs and various injuries. Currently ranked the No. 20 prospect in the Toronto system by MLB Pipeline, Alford is stuck in a crowd of young outfielders vying for opportunities with the Blue Jays.

02 Oct

the road ahead

Anthony Alford, once rated the 36th-best MLB draft prospect in the country, has some catching up to do. The former Mr. Baseball from Petal High, who recently left the Ole Miss football team to return to pro baseball, has played just 25 minor league games, none since 2013. Alford, an outfielder, will spend a couple of weeks in Toronto’s Instructional League camp in Florida and then head off to the Australian Baseball League, according to the National Post of Toronto. Because of his commitment to football — he originally signed with Southern Miss — he slipped to the third round in the 2012 draft. Toronto signed Alford with the intention of letting him continue to play college football while spending the summers in pro baseball. In two limited stints in the low minors, Alford has a career .200 average with a homer and six steals. Alford, who was also the state’s Mr. Football in 2011, has tremendous potential on the diamond. This is a guy who hit .483 with four homers, 31 RBIs and 14 steals as a senior at Petal. It’ll be interesting to see if he can get back on the prospect track. P.S. In addition to Bobby Abreu (see previous post), there was one other ex-Jackson Generals star still playing in 2014, though not in the major leagues. Daryle Ward, now 39, began the 2014 season in Mexico and finished in the independent Atlantic League. The lefty-hitting first baseman batted .239 with eight homers for Somerset, which recently was eliminated from the APBL playoffs. Ward, who hit 90 homers over his 11 MLB seasons, last played in the majors in 2008. He had a huge year for the 1997 Gens, batting .329 with 19 homers and 90 RBIs in 114 games before moving to Triple-A. And, of course, he famously hit a foul ball that blasted a hole in the outfield fence at Smith-Wills Stadium.