Tag Archives: Red Sox

14 Apr

anniversary time

There are some relatively well-known players among the Mississippi natives who have significant debut anniversaries to celebrate in 2024. Starkville native Hughie Critz, a Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer, broke in 100 years ago. McComb’s Dalton Jones came along in 1964, Belzoni’s Herb Washington — the designated runner — in 1974, Jackson natives Chris Brown and Stewart Cliburn in 1984 and Natchez’s Nook Logan in 2004. Ninety years ago, a relatively unheralded player from Perth in Jefferson County made his debut and enjoyed one of the best first games ever by a Magnolia Stater. George Hockette, a left-hander, debuted on Sept. 17, 1934, for the Boston Red Sox. All he did was throw a two-hit shutout against the St. Louis Browns at old Sportsman’s Park. He no-hit the Browns for the first 7 2/3 innings. Hockette also went 1-for-4 at the plate in the 3-0 victory. He pitched just two seasons in the majors, going 4-4 with a 4.08 ERA in 26 appearances, all with the Red Sox. He won 88 games all told in the minor leagues, pitching his last game in 1941. … Worth noting: Critz, a 5-foot-8, 147-pound second baseman, went 2-for-4 in his debut with Cincinnati and hit .322 that season. The Mississippi State alum batted .268 with 95 triples and 97 stolen bases over a 12-year career, twice finishing in the top four in MVP voting in the National League. … Washington, a track star at Michigan State, got in as a pinch runner for Oakland on opening day in 1974 but didn’t steal a bag. He went on to steal 31 bases without ever making a plate appearance before his career ended abruptly early in 1975. … In 1994, Pontotoc’s Steve Pegues, a high school star and first-round draft pick seven years earlier, broke in with Detroit. He batted .266 in 207 at-bats over two MLB campaigns. He stole just two bases in The Show but pilfered 103 in the minors.

06 Feb

better than most

In recognition of Black History Month, take a moment to appreciate the career of Vicksburg native Ellis Burks, arguably the best all-around player the Magnolia State has ever produced. His 1996 season with the Colorado Rockies might be the best single season any Mississippi native has put up in the big leagues. Born in Vicksburg in 1964, Burks also lived in Jackson for a time before his family moved to Texas. He was drafted out of Ranger College, a Texas juco, in the first round of the 1983 January draft by Boston. He debuted in MLB in 1987 at age 22 — amid Willie Mays comparisons — and batted .272 with 20 home runs as a Red Sox rookie. The 6-foot-2, 175-pound outfielder’s career ended in 2004, when injuries limited him to a handful of games, none in the postseason, for the Red Sox in their historic World Series-winning campaign. In between, he made two All-Star games, won two Silver Slugger awards and received a Gold Glove. He is now a scout for San Francisco. In 1996, as one of Colorado’s Blake Street Bombers, Burks batted .344 with 40 homers, 128 RBIs, a league-leading 142 runs, 45 doubles, 211 hits, 32 stolen bases and a 7.9 WAR, earning third place in the National League MVP voting. Among Mississippi natives, Burks is first in career homers (352), second in runs, RBIs and hits and fourth in stolen bases and batting average. And note that injuries curtailed several of his 18 seasons. On the career WAR chart, Burks is second among Mississippi-born position players with a 49.8; Jackson native Chet Lemon had a 55.6, aided considerably by his defense. Surprisingly, Burks lasted just one year on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, getting just two votes in 2010. But make no mistake: He had an impact, on and off the field. In 2004, when the Red Sox arrived back in Boston after winning the World Series in St. Louis, it was Burks — at the suggestion of Pedro Martinez — who got the honor of carrying the championship trophy off the plane. P.S. Mississippi State alum Ethan Small has landed with San Francisco, traded for cash by Milwaukee which had DFA’d the left-hander last week. … Mississippi College product Blaine Crim has received a non-roster invite to Texas’ spring camp.

24 Dec

on your marks

While it’s anyone’s guess at this point who might become the next Mississippian to debut in the majors, mlb.com has offered up three players as top prospects to watch in 2024. Former Jackson Prep star Will Warren (New York Yankees), Biloxi High product Colt Keith (Detroit) and Southern Miss alumnus Hurston Waldrep (Atlanta) appear close to breaking through. Warren, a 2021 draftee out of Southeastern Louisiana, is the Yankees’ No. 8 prospect (by MLB Pipeline) after posting a 10-4 record with a 3.35 ERA between Double-A and Triple-A in 2023. The right-hander throws hard and features a wipeout sweeper/slider, per reports. Keith, a 2020 draftee, is Detroit’s No. 2 prospect and could crack the Tigers’ lineup at second base this spring. He hit .306 with 27 home runs last season between Double-A and Triple-A and had a memorable 6-for-6 game with a cycle. Right-hander Waldrep was the Braves’ first-round pick (24th overall) out of Florida back in July and put up a 1.53 ERA while pitching at four minor league levels, including a brief stop with the Mississippi Braves. The Braves are not shy about promoting young arms. … Also worthy of keeping an eye on is Justin Foscue, the ex-Mississippi State standout who ranks as the No. 6 prospect in Texas’ system and made the organization’s minor league All-Star team at second base. He hit .266 with 18 homers in Triple-A and posted a .394 on-base average, walking more times than he struck out. P.S. Boston recently announced that former MSU star Jonathan Papelbon will be inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame next spring. He is Boston’s all-time saves leader (219) and won a World Series with the team in 2007. … Tampa Bay has signed Zac Houston, another State product, to a minor league deal. In the minors since 2016, the right-hander has a 3.18 career ERA in 230 games.

21 Sep

reaping rewards

Blaze Jordan finished the 2023 season in the Double-A Eastern League, but the former DeSoto Central High masher left his mark in the High-Class A South Atlantic League. Jordan was named the third baseman on milb.com’s SAL All-Star team. Rated the No. 12 prospect in Boston’s organization, Jordan hit .324 (.533 slug) with 12 homers and 55 RBIs in 73 games for High-A Greenville, helping the Drive win a first-half division title before his promotion to Double-A Portland on July 14. The Drive won the league championship on Tuesday. Jordan, at age 20 the youngest player on Portland’s roster, batted .254 with six homers and 31 RBIs for the Sea Dogs. A Portland teammate recently said this about Jordan in an milb.com piece: “He’s one of those guys that will roll out of bed and just hit .300, just rake, his first swing of the day is just a backside missile at 107 mph. It’s unbelievable.” A 6 feet 2, 220 pounds, power is Jordan’s best tool; he has 36 homers in 270 pro games. P.S. A couple more Mississippians got to celebrate minor league championships on Wednesday. Decatur native and ex-Ole Miss standout Kemp Alderman helped Jupiter, a Miami affiliate, win the Low-A Florida State League pennant, beating Clearwater 7-4 in the deciding game. Alderman, a second-round draftee this year and the Marlins’ No. 9 prospect, batted .313 in the playoffs and .205 with a homer and 15 RBIs for the season. He went 0-for-2 with three walks, a run and an RBI in Wednesday’s game. Mississippi State alum Christian MacLeod, a third-year pro, partied with the Cedar Rapids Kernels after the Minnesota affiliate won the High-A Midwest League title. MacLeod, a lefty, went 5-2 with a 4.13 ERA this season. … MSU product Jacob Robson went 1-for-4 with two RBIs as Kansas City beat Chicago 7-6 on Wednesday to claim the independent American Association’s Wolff Cup. Robson hit .250 with 10 homers and 31 RBIs for the Monarchs this season and hit three bombs in the postseason. Ex-MSU standout Gavin Collins, who didn’t play in the clincher, batted .314 with 10 homers and 41 RBIs for KC. The Monarchs’ first-base coach is Greenville native and former MLB All-Star Frank White.

20 Sep

party time

Dalton Rogers, former Southern Miss standout, and Colton Ledbetter, a Mississippi State product, celebrated minor league championships on Tuesday night. Northwest Rankin High alum Rogers, in his second year in Boston’s system, started and threw three innings of one-run ball to launch Greenville to a 7-3 win against Hudson Valley in the High-Class A South Atlantic League. Left-hander Rogers, rated the Red Sox’s No. 27 prospect (MLB Pipeline), went 2-6 with a 5.52 ERA for Greenville, with 102 strikeouts in 75 innings. He had 140 punchouts in 96 2/3 innings overall in 2023 at two levels. Ledbetter, a second-round draft pick by Tampa Bay in July and already slotted in as the No. 9 prospect, was 1-for-4 in Tuesday’s clincher for Charleston, which beat Down East 7-5 for the Low-A Carolina League crown. Ledbetter hit .254 with a homer and eight RBIs for Charleston, .274 with two homers overall in his pro debut. The outfielder played one year in Starkville after transferring from Samford. P.S. Happy 53rd birthday to former Ole Miss star and ex-big leaguer Chris Snopek. Snopek hit .234 with 13 homers in 215 MLB games between 1995-98. He had the distinction of getting a hit in his first big league at-bat and in his final one. Snopek now operates P360 Performance Sports and serves as an assistant coach at Madison-Ridgeland Academy.

16 Jul

you never know

On paper, based on practically all the relevant stats, this should not have happened. Lance Lynn and the Chicago White Sox should not have beaten Spencer Strider and the Atlanta Braves. But it happened on Saturday night at Truist Park in Atlanta. Over the course of 162 games, games like this do happen, which is one of the joys of baseball. The White Sox, 38-55 after a 9-0 loss on Friday, beat the Braves (61-29, best record in MLB) in a roller coaster affair, 6-5. Former Ole Miss star Lynn, 5-8 with a 6.03 ERA going in, got the win against All-Star Strider, 11-2 with a 3.44. Both threw 97 pitches in the Georgia swelter, and neither was particularly sharp. Ex-Mississippi State standout Kendall Graveman got the save, his eighth as the fill-in closer, but not before giving up a home run to Ronald Acuna leading off the ninth that made it a one-run game. Graveman gave up two more hits before getting a ground ball up the middle that East Central Community College product Tim Anderson, who has had his issues at shortstop, turned into a nifty 6-3 double play to end the game. Lynn worked 5 1/3 innings, yielding six hits, three walks and four runs. He gave up two homers; his season total of 24 is the highest in baseball. He struck out six and has 133 on the year, ranking sixth in MLB. The last run Lynn allowed came on a fifth-inning single by DeSoto Central High alum Austin Riley that tied the score 4-4. Strider, who fanned 10 on Saturday, leads MLB in that category with 176. But he allowed eight hits — several on two-strike pitches — and five runs over six innings. The ChiSox took the lead for the third and final time on a two-out, two-strike homer by Jake Burger off Strider in the sixth. Strider has allowed 14 homers. The teams go at it again today. On paper, the Braves should win. But as Saturday showed, you never know. P.S. Ex-DeSoto Central star Blaze Jordan’s first Double-A homer was a big one. His two-run ninth-inning blast gave Portland a 3-2 win at Reading in the Eastern League contest. Jordan was promoted Friday from High-Class A Greenville in the Boston system. … Minnesota recalled former Southern Miss slugger Matt Wallner from Triple-A on Saturday; he did not play in the Twins’ 10-7 win vs. Oakland. Wallner, who made his MLB debut in 2022, was 7-for-19 with a homer and four RBIs in two previous stints this season with the Twins.

15 Jul

enter the fray

The All-Mississippi Home Run Derby competition should be fun to watch down the stretch of the 2023 season. Austin Riley and Brent Rooker — a pair of All-Stars — lead the way with 16 home runs each, topping Hunter Renfroe by one. Suddenly, on Friday, a rather unexpected contender threw his hat in the ring with those heavyweights. Former Mississippi State star Adam Frazier hit two homers for Baltimore in a 5-2 win over Miami. It was the first multi-homer game for Frazier in his eight MLB seasons and gave him 12 for the year, bettering his career-high by two. The lefty-hitting infielder hit 10 homers in 2018 and ’19 when he was with Pittsburgh. The Orioles signed him as a free agent in the off-season to add some veteran presence to their young roster. The power Frazier has supplied has been a bonus for the O’s, who have won six straight to reach 55-35, second in the American League East. “Yeah, it’s surprising,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde told mlb.com about Frazier’s power production. “(I)t’s been huge for us.” Frazier is batting .240 with 44 RBIs and 41 runs. … Riley, the DeSoto Central High product, led all Mississippians in the majors (natives or school alums) with 38 homers in 2022. He is off that pace this season, but a sudden surge would not be a surprise. MSU alum Renfroe hit 29 last season, two more than fellow former Bulldogs standout Nathaniel Lowe. Lowe is sitting on 10 at present. P.S. Former DeSoto Central slugger Blaze Jordan went 0-for-3 with a walk in his Double-A debut Friday for Portland in the Boston system. Jordan, 20, had 12 homers in A-ball this season and 30 total in his two-plus pro seasons.

27 Jun

‘like a movie’

Ex-Mississippi State star Jordan Westburg stood in the batter’s box for his first big league at-bat with both raindrops and chants of “Westy, Westy” cascading from above at Camden Yards in Baltimore. “It felt like something out of like a movie, or something that you dream, honestly,” he told mlb.com after Monday’s game, a 10-3 win over Cincinnati. Westburg walked (and later scored) in that first at-bat, picked up an RBI on a fielder’s choice grounder in his second and singled in his third. His debut was the lead story on MLB Network’s Quick Pitch. A first-round draft pick out of MSU in 2020, Westburg is the O’s No. 3-ranked prospect and was having a big year at Triple-A Norfolk before getting the call-up. He started at second base — where he made a slick play — and hit seventh in the order. … Westburg wasn’t the only Mississippi product to get a promotion on Monday. Detroit has moved former Biloxi High standout Colt Keith, its No. 1 prospect and the No. 43 overall (per mlb.com), to Triple-A Toledo. The 21-year-old third baseman is expected to debut on Wednesday at Columbus. Keith hit .325 with 14 homers and 50 RBIs at Double-A Erie and helped the club win a first-half championship. He also has been chosen to play in the All-Star Futures Game in Seattle on July 8. (Other Mississippians who have played in that game include Billy Hamilton, Hunter Renfroe, Nathaniel Lowe, Dakota Hudson, Ethan Small and Matt Wallner.) … Who’ll be next among Mississippians in the minors to move up the ladder? Possibly Blaze Jordan, the slugger from DeSoto Central who is currently at High-Class A Greenville in the Boston system. Jordan, 20, is hitting .328 with 10 homers and 47 RBIs in his first full season at Greenville, where he finished 2022. Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom recently said of the team’s No. 10 prospect, “(H)e’s definitely got our attention.” And then there’s Tim Elko, the Ole Miss product who is batting .297 with 17 homers and 57 RBIs at Low-A Kannapolis in the Chicago White Sox’s chain. Elko, at 24, is a little old for this level and seemingly deserves a bump up.

21 Jun

tag team

A couple of old college rivals teamed up Tuesday to spark Memphis to a win over Iowa in the Triple-A International League. Ex-Mississippi State star Dakota Hudson, a first-round pick by St. Louis in 2016, threw five strong innings and ex-Ole Miss star Errol Robinson, a sixth-rounder by the Los Angeles Dodgers in ’16, went 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run as the Cardinals’ top farm club won 8-5 over the Chicago Cubs’ top affiliate. Hudson, recently back from the injured list, improved to 4-4 with his third win this month. He allowed seven hits, two walks and two runs while fanning eight. The 28-year-old right-hander has had some rocky outings among his 10 starts and his 5.57 ERA reflects as much. Hudson is 32-17 with a 3.61 in major league work for St. Louis, but he was sent to the minors during spring training, reportedly because his velocity was down. Robinson, playing mostly third base for the Redbirds, is riding a five-game hit streak during which he is 8-for-15 with five RBIs and five runs. On the year, he is batting .233 in 36 games. He has bounced around during his seven pro seasons, including a stint in independent ball, but has yet to make an MLB appearance. He signed with St. Louis last July and put up some decent numbers in Double-A. P.S. Blaze Jordan, the DeSoto Central High product, leads the High-Class A South Atlantic League in batting at .322 and has a 10-game hitting streak. The Boston Red Sox prospect is batting .355 in June. He has 10 homers and 47 RBIs for Greenville. … Former Ole Miss standout Tim Elko leads the Low-A Carolina League in homers with 15 for Kannapolis (Chicago White Sox). He has a .298 average and 52 RBIs. (Why is he still in this league?) … South Panola High alum Emaarion Boyd continues to pace the Low-A Florida State League in steals with 36 in 45 games at Clearwater (Philadelphia). The 2022 draftee is batting .270.

02 Jun

the babe chronicles

On this date in 1935, Babe Ruth announced his retirement at age 40. He was the game’s preeminent slugger at the time — “the Sultan of Swat, The Colossus of Clout, the King of Crash” — with 714 home runs, a record that would stand for 39 years. By weird coincidence, a collection of Mississippi natives have significant links to Ruth’s big league career. To wit: When Ruth debuted as a 19-year-old pitcher for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on July 11, 1914, the opposing starter was Pleasant Grove native Willie Mitchell of the Cleveland Naps. Mitchell struck out Ruth in his first at-bat, but Ruth won the game and Mitchell took the loss. After the 1919 season, his first as a full-time hitter, Ruth was famously traded by Boston to the New York Yankees, where he became the right fielder in 2020, displacing Batesville native Sammy Vick at that position. The two reportedly became fast friends, but Vick’s playing time decreased dramatically and he was traded after the season. In the 1932 World Series, when Ruth gestured and then smacked his legendary “Called Shot” home run at Wrigley Field, he was responding to abuse from the Chicago Cubs dugout, where Aberdeen native Guy Bush was among the most vocal bench jockeys. Three years later, on May 25, 1935, an aging Ruth, playing for the Boston Braves, hit the last three home runs of his career. Nos. 713 and 714, both massive clouts at Forbes Field, came against Bush, then pitching for Pittsburgh. Five days later, Ruth played his final game. At the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, in his lone at-bat in the top of the first inning, he was retired on a ground ball by Jackson native Jim Bivin, pitching in his one and only big league season. Ruth was then replaced in left field by Ludlow native Hal Lee, who would go on to bang out three hits that day. Ruth was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1936.