Tag Archives: Rangers

13 May

smooth move

The Chicago Cubs’ trade for Drew Pomeranz late last month is beginning to look like a very shrewd deal. The veteran left-hander out of Ole Miss has yet to allow a run in eight appearances out of the bullpen for the first-place Cubs, and on Monday night, the 6-foot-5 “Big Smooth” recorded his first MLB save in five years. The 36-year-old Pomeranz worked the ninth in a 5-2 win against Miami at Wrigley Field, allowing one hit and fanning two. “(S)ince we got Drew, he’s just been pounding the zone,” Chicago manager Craig Counsell told mlb.com. “That’s probably what you like best is, it’s just a lot of strikes.” Pomeranz has struck out eight and walked just two in 7 2/3 innings. More closing opportunities may be in his future. The Cubs traded with San Diego to acquire Pomeranz, who was pitching in the minors, and he debuted on April 25, his first MLB game since 2021. A former first-round pick (in 2010) who has been a World Series champ and an All-Star, he had been battling injury issues since that time. “I’m just happy to be here. Literally, it feels like the first time all over again,” Pomeranz said when he joined the Cubs. A starter early in his pro career, he has now appeared in 297 games with a 48-58 record, 10 saves and a 3.88 ERA. P.S. Mississippi State alum Kendall Graveman has been activated from the IL by Arizona; the veteran pitcher missed all of 2024 after arm surgery. … Ex-Mississippi College star Blaine Crim was returned to Triple-A Round Rock by Texas; he went 0-for-11 during his brief call-up. … Brandon Woodruff, former MSU standout from Wheeler, has been shut down on his rehab assignment because of an ankle injury. The erstwhile Milwaukee ace has been out since mid-2023 following an arm injury and surgery. … Four Mississippi products appear in MLB Pipeline’s refreshed Top 100 minor league prospects list: Konnor Griffin (Pittsburgh system) at No. 37, Braden Montgomery (White Sox) No. 38, Cooper Pratt (Milwaukee) No. 50 and Jurrangelo Cijntje (Seattle) No. 92.

08 May

in the spotlight

Millsaps College, regular season champion of the Southern Athletic Association, hosts the league tournament beginning today at Twenty Field in Jackson. The Majors (28-12) play Berry at 1 p.m., followed by Centre vs. Rhodes at 5. It is a double-elimination format. The Majors went 3-0 against Berry this season, 2-1 vs. Centre and 1-2 vs. longtime rival Rhodes. Millsaps, 18-6 at home in 2025, last won the SAA Tournament 12 years ago, also advancing to the NCAA Division III World Series that year. Under coach Jim Page, who has 800-plus wins in 36 seasons, the Majors have been to eight D-III regionals all told. Gray Berry leads Millsaps in hitting with a .418 average. Bradley Pelle is at .394 with 13 homers and 56 RBIs. The Majors led the SAA in home runs. Nick Tarantino is the staff ace, going 9-1 with a 3.03 ERA. P.S. Braden Montgomery, the Madison Central High product now in the Chicago White Sox system, hit a three-run walk-off homer Wednesday for Winston-Salem, beating Bowling Green 7-6. Montgomery, who hit two homers on Tuesday, is batting .367 with three bombs and nine RBIs in eight games at the High-Class A level. … In MLB on Wednesday, Boston’s Aroldis Chapman threw a 103.8 mph pitch — fastest in MLB this season — and ex-Mississippi College star Blaine Crim fouled it off. Crim, still seeking his first hit since his call-up by Texas last week, struck out on the next pitch, a 95 mph splitter, to end the game, a 6-4 Red Sox win.

07 May

it’s a process

Though the power tool has not yet clicked on for Dakota Jordan, the Mississippi State product has assembled some impressive stats in what is essentially his first pro season. Jordan, a fourth-round draftee in 2024 and currently San Francisco’s No. 6 prospect, ranks in the top 10 in the Low-Class A California League in hits (31), RBIs (21) and stolen bases (11). He also has scored 18 runs, 13th in the league. After a 2-for-4 effort on Tuesday, he is batting .298 (12th in the CL) with one homer, four doubles and two triples in 27 games for San Jose. Canton native Jordan, a two-sport star at Jackson Academy before playing baseball only at MSU, has what MLB Pipeline called “the quickest bat in the 2024 draft.” He hit 30 homers in two years with the Bulldogs and won the state’s Ferriss Trophy last year. His power and speed tools were highly rated by pro scouts. But he slipped to the fourth round in the draft, perhaps due to concerns about his strikeout tendencies and outfield defense. The Giants gave him a $1.9 million bonus to sign last summer; at this stage, it looks like a good investment. If he continues to hit around .300, the home runs will surely come. … Ex-Madison Central High star Braden Montgomery, the Chicago White Sox’s No. 5 prospect (MLB Pipeline), hit his first two homers at High-A Winston-Salem on Tuesday. The switch-hitter, drafted in the first round last summer out of Texas A&M, is batting .360 in seven games since being promoted from Low-A Kannapolis. … Ole Miss alum Cooper Johnson, now in the Texas organization, went 2-for-5 in his first game for Triple-A Round Rock; the 27-year-old catcher was hitting .267 with three homers at Double-A Frisco. P.S. After falling to West Alabama 12-6 Tuesday in the Gulf South Conference Tournament, Mississippi College awaits the May 11 NCAA Division II Selection Show to see if its season will continue in a regional. MC is 33-21, including wins over top-seeded Delta State and No. 2-seed Valdosta in the GSC tourney at Oxford, Ala. DSU (32-18) is also hoping for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.

03 May

home cookin’

In his major league debut Friday night, Gunnar Hoglund wore the colors of the visiting team, but he sure looked right at home on the mound at loanDepot Park in Miami. In a sense, he was. A native of Dunedin, Fla., the former Ole Miss standout had a cheering section of family and friends behind the A’s dugout, and he treated them to a brilliant performance. Hoglund shut out the Marlins for five innings before yielding a solo homer in the sixth. He finished six innings, allowing six hits and no walks with seven strikeouts in a 6-1 victory. “All those people that came and watched me tonight, they’ve all played a part in me getting to this point now. … Without them, I wouldn’t be here,” Hoglund told mlb.com. Hoglund, 25, was the 19th overall pick out of Ole Miss by Toronto in 2021 after going 10-5 with a 3.68 ERA in three college seasons. He was traded to Oakland the next spring. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound right-hander was 1-2, 2.43, in six starts in his first full season in Triple-A when he got the call to the big leagues. … Former Mississippi College star Blaine Crim also made his MLB debut on Friday, and it didn’t go as well. Batting eighth and playing first base for Texas, Crim went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts as the slumping Rangers lost to visiting Seattle 13-1. He struck out in his first at-bat against Bryan Woo. A .296 career hitter in six minor league seasons, Crim is the first former MC player to appear in a big league game since Harry Craft in 1942. P.S. Ole Miss product Doug Nikhazy, knocked around in his big league debut last Saturday, got knocked around again in his first Triple-A start since returning to the minors. The left-hander yielded eight hits (three homers), three walks and five runs in four innings, taking the loss Friday for Columbus against St. Paul. His Triple-A ERA rose to 4.84. Debuting for Cleveland on April 26, Nikhazy gave up six runs in three innings against Boston.

02 May

debut alert, take 2

To a list that includes MLB old-timers Harry Craft and Hal Lee, add Blaine Crim. The former Mississippi College star reportedly will be called up by the Texas Rangers, who sent veteran first baseman Jake Burger to the minors on Thursday. The list of former MC players who have played in the majors is fairly short, including Craft (1937-42), Lee (1930-36), George Gill (1937-39) and Jim Joe Edwards (1922-28). Crim, 27, was hitting .313 (.565 slug) with seven homers and 25 RBIs at Triple-A Round Rock. He is a .296 career hitter with 110 minor league homers since 2019. He won a Puerto Rican Winter League batting title with a .406 average in 2022. The Rangers drafted Crim in the 19th round after he won Gulf South Conference player of the year honors in his fourth year at MC. A 5-foot-10, 200-pound first baseman/DH, he has never been on the Rangers’ 40-man roster. Interestingly, Texas opted not to recall ex-Mississippi State standout Justin Foscue, who can also play first base. Foscue made his MLB debut last year and is currently hitting .304 at Round Rock. Of note: Four former MSU players have manned first base for the Rangers over the years: Rafael Palmeiro, Will Clark, Mitch Moreland and Nathaniel Lowe.

17 Apr

stat sheet watching

As the Chicago White Sox continue to struggle at the plate, their Triple-A first baseman — Tim Elko — is flourishing with a .373 average, three homers and 11 RBIs in 14 games for Charlotte. Former Ole Miss star Elko went 3-for-5 with two homers and four RBIs in the Knights’ loss to Nashville on Wednesday night. He ranks sixth in the International League in hitting. Elko, 26, has hit at every level since the White Sox drafted him in the 10th round in 2022: .291 career with 54 homers. The folks at MLB Pipeline suggest that Elko, who isn’t on the 40-man roster, could be an impactful call-up for the ChiSox (4-13), who are 29th in MLB in both runs and batting average. … In the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, ex-Mississippi College star Blaine Crim — another off-the-radar slugger — stands sixth in the league in batting at .364 and has three homers and 11 RBIs for Round Rock, a Texas affiliate. Crim, 27, a sixth-year pro, is a .297 career hitter with 104 homers. … Mississippi State product Justin Foscue, also at Round Rock, is hitting .333 with two bombs and eight RBIs. He might rate another shot with the Rangers; he hit .048 in limited at-bats in his MLB debut in 2024. … Kemp Alderman, Ferriss Trophy winner at Ole Miss two years ago, is third in the Double-A Southern League with a .359 average and tied for first with three homers at Pensacola in Miami’s system. … Magnolia Heights product Cooper Pratt has hit two homers for Biloxi in the SL and is batting .266 in his debut for Milwaukee’s Double-A team. … In the Double-A Texas League, Ole Miss alum Cooper Johnson has three homers — tied for the TL lead — in seven games for Frisco, a Texas affiliate, and is batting .304. … Braden Montgomery, an ex-Madison Central High standout and a first-round pick last summer, is tied for first with 13 RBIs in the Low-Class A Carolina League and is batting .353 with two homers for the White Sox’s Kannapolis club. He was traded to Chicago by Boston in the Garrett Crochet deal. … Konnor Griffin, the Jackson Prep product drafted ninth overall by Pittsburgh in 2024, is tied for second in the Low-A Florida State League with six stolen bases. He is batting .231 with two homers, seven RBIs and nine runs through 10 games in his pro debut with Bradenton. … Oddest stat for a Mississippian in the minors: ex-South Panola standout Emaarion Boyd is tied for fourth in the High-A Midwest League with seven steals. He got six of them in one game. The fourth-year pro, who has 98 career bags, is batting just .120 (three hits) for Beloit in the Miami system. P.S. Former Southern Miss star Dustin Dickerson was promoted to Triple-A Omaha by Kansas City and debuted as a defensive replacement on Wednesday. The shortstop was batting .286 in Double-A. … Ex-USM slugger Matt Wallner, now with the Minnesota Twins, went on the injured list with a hamstring strain. He was batting .263 (.373 OBP) with a homer, three RBIs and seven runs, leading off for the Twins much of the time.

03 Apr

powering up

The chase is real for Hunter Hines, who has powered his way to within six home runs of Mississippi State’s exalted career record. Rafael Palmeiro — a member of MLB’s 500-homer club — hit 67 bombs at State from 1983-85, including a single-season record 29 (shared with Bruce Castoria) in 1984. Hines, a Madison Central High product now in his fourth year in Starkville, hit his 61st homer on Tuesday at Memphis, tying Will Clark for second on the career list. You’re in rare air when you’re being mentioned with the legendary Thunder and Lightning. Hines has seven homers this season. A lefty hitter who goes 6 feet 3, 210 pounds, Hines averaged 18 homers in his first three MSU seasons, and there’s a lot of 2025 left, assuming he stays healthy. His power seems legit; he led the Cape Cod League — a wood bat league — with 13 homers in 41 games in 2023. He was listed on some MLB draft prospect charts last year but didn’t get called. So he returned to Starkville, where he was a freshman All-America pick in 2022, All-SEC in 2023 and is now in hot pursuit of a record that will cement his legacy as one of the Bulldogs’ greats. Of note: Hines’ father, Richey, is the career homer leader at NCAA Division II Mississippi College with 57. The overall state homer record is believed to be 69, set by D-II Delta State’s Dee Haynes (1998-2000). P.S. MSU alum and Tampa Bay rookie Jake Mangum got another hit Wednesday, one of just three allowed by Paul Skeenes in Pittsburgh’s 4-2 victory. Mangum now has eight MLB hits, which puts him 900 behind fellow former Bulldogs hit king and good friend Adam Frazier, who had two knocks for the Pirates and drove in their first run. Of course, Mangum topped Frazier by a wide margin on MSU’s career hits list: 383 to 224. … Garrett Crochet, the ex-Ocean Springs High star who just a got a huge contract extension from Boston, threw a career-high eight innings with eight strikeouts as the Red Sox blanked Baltimore 3-0. Crochet, a converted reliever, said he last threw eight innings in the first game of his freshman year at Tennessee in 2018. … Former MC standout Blaine Crim hit a walk-off three-run homer for Triple-A Round Rock, completing a game in which he also had a triple, a single and a walk. Crim, 27, is in his sixth season in Texas’ system and carries a .296 average with 104 homers.

31 Mar

checking in …

Jake Mangum finally got his name in a major league box score on Sunday, joining the long list of Mississippi natives — and Mississippi State alumni — to make The Show. Barely a minute into the game, the Flowood native and Jackson Prep grad caught a fly ball in right field for the first out of Tampa Bay’s 6-4 victory over Colorado. Mangum was with his Triple-A Durham team in Virginia on Friday when he was told he had gotten “the call,” six years after he was drafted into pro ball. “Heartbeat went up a lot,” he said. He scrambled to get to Tampa on Saturday and completed his long journey on Sunday when he ran out onto Steinbrenner Field in a big league unie. A rookie at 29. Now another quest remains: the first big league hit. He went 0-for-3 in his MLB debut, driving a ball deep to left field in his first at-bat. He struck out in his second, flied out to center in his third and walked in his final plate appearance. He might get another chance today when the Rays host Pittsburgh. Mangum has had a ton of hits over the years: 383 of them at State, another 78 in summer leagues, then 496 in the minors. After all the work he’s put in and all the waiting he’s done since his first pro game in 2019, it’s hard to imagine what that first major league hit will feel like. P.S. A major league opportunity is a cherished thing, never taken for granted. Justin Foscue, a teammate of Mangum’s at MSU, is no doubt itching for another shot with the Texas Rangers. They needed an infielder on Sunday but recalled another player from Triple-A Round Rock, where Foscue is now playing. He made his MLB debut last April and got a hit in his second game before going on the injured list. He got a couple more call-ups over the year but managed only one more knock in 42 at-bats all told, finishing on an 0-for-39 skid. The 2020 first-round draftee is a .278 career hitter — with power — in the minors and is off to a 4-for-11 start in 2025.

13 Mar

breaking out

The Spring Breakout games, featuring most of the best minor league talent, begin today with Boston’s squad taking on Tampa Bay (MLB Network, 6:05 p.m.). On the Red Sox’s roster is former DeSoto Central High star Blaze Jordan, while the Rays’ roster includes Mississippi State product Colton Ledbetter. The games, 16 all told, will run through Sunday. Among the Mississippians who could be featured are Konnor Griffin (Pittsburgh), Braden Montgomery (Chicago White Sox), Tim Elko (White Sox), Cooper Pratt (Milwaukee), Dakota Jordan (San Francisco), Jurrangelo Cijntje (Seattle) and Tanner Hall (Minnesota). MLB Pipeline has pegged David Mershon, former All-SEC shortstop out of MSU, as a sleeper prospect on the Los Angeles Angels team. Though not ranked among the Angels’ Top 30, the 5-foot-7, 175-pound Mershon’s star appears to be ascending. From mlb.com: “He’s a switch-hitter with on-base skills and speed who can play excellent infield defense.” Drafted in the 18th round last summer after two years at State (.347, 27 steals last year), the South Carolina native went straight to Double-A and hit .254. The Angels then sent him to the Arizona Fall League, another high-talent loop, and Mershon batted .263 there. Invited to big league camp, he is 3-for-14 in A-games. The Angels’ Spring Breakout game is slated for Saturday (MLBN, 8:05 p.m.) against the Cubs. P.S. Justin Foscue, another former MSU infielder, was optioned to Triple-A by Texas on Wednesday. Foscue, batting .235 in big league games this spring, made his MLB debut in 2024 but hit just .048 (2-for-42). The 14th overall pick in the 2020 draft, he has a .278 career average in the minors with 60 homers. … MSU alum Kendall Graveman, recently signed by Arizona as a free agent, has not pitched this spring because of a reported back issue. He missed all of the 2024 season following shoulder surgery.

23 Dec

it’s a challenge

The new task for Nathaniel Lowe, who has a World Series ring, a Silver Slugger award and a Gold Glove on his resume, is to help the lowly Washington Nationals climb back into contention in the stacked National League East. The ex-Mississippi State slugger was traded Sunday from Texas to the Nationals for left-hander Robert Garcia. A lefty-hitting first baseman, Lowe had some very good years with Texas after moving there from Tampa Bay. He batted .274 with 78 home runs in four years as a regular with the Rangers, who won the 2023 world championship. Lowe, 29, hit .302 with 27 bombs in his Silver Slugger season of 2022 but faded a bit the last two years, batting just .265 with 16 homers in 2024. The Nats, who have had five straight losing seasons, were in desperate need of a first baseman, while Texas had recently acquired Jake Burger, another power-hitting first baseman, from Miami. … In another deal involving the NL East, ex-South Panola High star Emaarion Boyd, Philadelphia’s No. 23 prospect, was shipped to Miami along with another prospect for major league pitcher Jesus Luzardo and a minor leaguer. Boyd, a speedy outfielder, played at the High-Class A level last season, hitting .239 with 24 steals. An 11th-round pick by the Phillies in 2022, Boyd has a .256 career average and 91 bags in his fledgling pro career. P.S. Former Ole Miss catcher Cooper Johnson, who played in Double-A last season, has been invited to big league spring training by Texas. Johnson hit .235 with 14 homers at Double-A Frisco in 2024; he was originally drafted by Detroit in 2019.