Tag Archives: Royals

07 Sep

three’s company

Brian Dozier, the ex-Southern Miss star, hit his 27th home run and scored his 92nd run for Minnesota, which lost to Houston 8-5 on Sunday. Dozier is batting .242 with 69 RBIs and 10 steals. Jarrod Dyson, the Southwest Mississippi Community College product, hit a home run, his second, and got an infield hit in Kansas City’s 7-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox. Dyson is batting .258 with 27 runs and 23 steals. Chris Coghlan, the former Ole Miss standout, went 1-for-4 with a run in the Chicago Cubs’ 6-4 win over Arizona, a game most notable for Kris Bryant’s 495-foot homer. Coghlan is hitting .247 with 15 homers, 36 RBIs, 53 runs and 11 stolen bases. There is a common thread for these three players other than their Mississippi connection. Each one is filling the stat sheet for a team that was not forecast to contend in 2015 but is doing so. The Royals and Cubs appear to be postseason locks, and the Twins are hanging around in the jumbled American League wild card race. There are three compelling MLB series starting today, and all three of the aforementioned players, plus a couple more Mississippians, will be involved. Dyson’s Royals host Dozier’s Twins; Coghlan’s Cubs visit St. Louis, where today they’ll face UM product Lance Lynn (11-8, 2.80 ERA), who’ll make his first start since hurting his ankle on Aug. 29; and Washington, with Mississippi State alum Tyler Moore back on duty, hosts the New York Mets. P.S. The Mississippi Braves were eliminated from Southern League postseason contention on Sunday when they lost at Jacksonville and Pensacola beat Mobile.

28 Aug

into the wild

Joey Butler celebrated his return to The Show with a couple of hits, a game-tying RBI and the go-ahead run in Tampa Bay’s 5-4 win over Minnesota, which had won six straight. Pascagoula native Butler was recalled by the Rays on Thursday when Itawamba Community College alum Desmond Jennings went back on the disabled list. The Twins, along with the Rays two of the eight American League teams (excluding current division leaders) within 5 games of a wild card, got a 1-for-3 effort from ex-Southern Miss star Brian Dozier, who scored his 87th run. … In another battle of AL playoff contenders, Mississippi State product Mitch Moreland went 1-for-4 with an RBI (No. 67) to help Texas to a 4-1 victory over Toronto, the AL East Division leader managed by former Jackson Mets catcher John Gibbons. … Former State star Buck Showalter’s Baltimore club, another playoff hopeful, fell to AL Central leader Kansas City 5-3. Southwest Mississippi CC’s Jarrod Dyson had a tough day for ex-JaxMets star Ned Yost’s Royals: 0-for-4 with an error (just his second of the year). … In the slightly less crazy National League, Washington, which was supposed to run away with the East Division title, kept pace (though still 6.5 games out) with the first-place New York Mets by holding off San Diego 4-2. Former State standout Jonathan Papelbon notched his fourth save for the Nationals but yielded a run, a hit, a walk and a balk in his one inning. … Ex-JaxMets skipper Clint Hurdle’s Pittsburgh Pirates grinded out a 2-1 win over Miami and tightened their grip on the first NL wild card spot. The Chicago Cubs lost 9-1 to San Francisco, another postseason contender, and dropped 4 games back of the Bucs, who are trying to keep NL Central leader St. Louis in range. … September is coming, and it’s only going to get better for MLB fans.

19 Aug

speed demons

Speed is good. Speed never slumps. Mississippi natives Billy Hamilton and Jarrod Dyson, two of the fastest players in the game, showed the value of speed in Tuesday night’s Kansas City-Cincinnati game, won by the Royals 3-1 in 13 innings. With the score tied 1-1 in the 11th, Reds center fielder Hamilton sprinted into right-center field and made a diving stop of a ball headed for the gap, then threw out Alcides Escobar at second base for the first out of the inning. In the 13th, the Royals’ Dyson scored the go-ahead run from first base after Reds pitcher Ryan Matheus threw Kris Medlen’s bunt down the right-field line. Hamilton also stole his MLB-leading 54th base; Dyson, not a regular for KC, got No. 23. (Hard as it is to believe, both also grounded into double plays.) P.S. There was a show of power, too. Ole Miss alumni Chris Coghlan and Seth Smith went deep, Coghlan hitting No. 14 on the year in the Chicago Cubs’ 10-8 loss to Detroit and Smith No. 10 in Seattle’s 3-2 win against Texas. Southern Miss product Brian Dozier still leads the all-Mississippi home run derby with 25, followed by ex-Mississippi State standout Mitch Moreland with 17.

16 Aug

celebrate, celebrate …

The party was at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. Before a packed house and a national TV audience on Saturday, the first-place Royals celebrated win No. 70 on the season, win No. 900 of Ned Yost’s managerial career and birthday No. 31 for Jarrod Dyson. Dyson, the McComb native and ex-Southwest Mississippi Community College star, partied hard during the game, going 3-for-4 with three RBIs, two runs, two steals and an outfield assist to fuel the Royals’ 9-4 victory against the Los Angeles Angels. KC broke the game open with a six-run second inning during which Dyson slapped a two-run single and scored a run. “Any time you get the win, that’s a great day for us,” Dyson, who usually offers something much more colorful, told the Kansas City Star after the game. It was also a great day for Yost, the former Jackson Mets catcher who hushed a lot of doubters by steering this club to the World Series last year. The current Royals have won seven of nine and are running away with the American League Central. P.S. The Houston Astros celebrated their 2005 World Series team on Saturday at Minute Maid Park. Among the stars of that club were Holmes Community College product Roy Oswalt, a 20-game winner, and Jackson Generals alum Lance Berkman, who hit .293 with 24 home runs.

26 Jul

trade winds

Cody Reed made one big move this season when he rose from A-ball to Double-A. Now he’s making another, this one from the Kansas City system to Cincinnati’s. Reed, a left-hander from Horn Lake, was one of the three pitchers the Royals sent to the Reds in their trade today for ace right-hander Johnny Cueto. The main piece for the Reds is Brandon Finnegan, a hard-throwing lefty who made a name for himself in the 2014 postseason. But Reed may prove to be much more than a throw-in. The 6-foot-5, 220-pounder, a second-round draft pick in 2013 out of Northwest Mississippi Community College, is in the midst of a strong season. He went 5-5 with a save and a 2.14 ERA in 13 appearances at Class A Wilmington and earned a promotion to Double-A Northwest Arkansas, where he was 2-2, 3.45 in five starts. Reed may well land in Pensacola in the Southern League.

22 Jul

small wonder

His name doesn’t show up among the MLB statistical leaders in any category. Jarrod Dyson is just a part-time player for Kansas City, but when his times come, the McComb native has a knack for making things happen. Take Tuesday, for example. Batting in the eighth inning of a scoreless game, facing Pittsburgh ace Gerrit Cole, with runners at second and third and the infield in, Dyson dropped a single into right field. Two runs scored. Dyson, blessed with great wheels, took second when the outfielder misplayed the ball. He stole third and scored on another hit. The Royals held on to win 3-1. They are 56-36, 6.5 games up on Minnesota in the American League Central. They are 8-3 since star outfielder Alex Gordon went down with an injury. Dyson has helped fill that void. “I just want to play, man. That’s been my theory since I got here,” the Southwest Mississippi Community College alumnus said in a Kansas City Star article. Dyson, a 50th-round pick in 2006, arrived in the big leagues in 2010 and is one of the longest tenured Royals. The 5-foot-10 left-handed hitter doesn’t have any big numbers on his 2015 ledger, but he has a lot of little ones. In 49 games, 119 at-bats, Dyson has 18 runs, 11 RBIs, 15 steals, four triples, two sacrifice bunts, four outfield assists and zero errors. He is batting .261. Most important, his team is in first place.

15 Jul

exclusive company

The first list is fairly long and includes the likes of Johnny Bench, David Ortiz, David Wright, Bo Jackson, former Atlanta Braves star Javy Lopez and ex-Jackson Mets standout Lee Mazzilli. The second is shorter but no less impressive: Kirby Puckett and Harmon Killebrew. Southern Miss alum Brian Dozier put his name on both lists on Tuesday night when he homered, in his first at-bat, in the All-Star Game. Dozier went deep against Pittsburgh closer Mark Melancon in the eighth inning, helping the American League take a 6-3 victory at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. It was the 16th time a player has homered in his first career All-Star at-bat; the last player to do it was J.D. Drew in 2008. Dozier became the third Minnesota player to homer in the Midsummer Classic, joining Hall of Famers Puckett and Killebrew. “I might say I don’t deserve to be in that company, I can tell you that,” the ever humble Dozier told mlb.com. For the record, Dozier has 19 homers this season and 42 over the last two. … The idea of having the All-Star Game “count” seemed silly to a lot of people when it first started in 2003. But that’s changing. Listening to Ned Yost, the former Jackson Mets catcher who managed the AL squad, talk about preparing his lineup and game plan, you get a different perspective. He took this thing very seriously. “We tried to punch holes in (the game plan) every which way we could, and we worked it to perfection,” he told mlb.com after the game. Yost’s Kansas City team had home-field advantage in the 2014 World Series, and even though the Royals lost in seven games to San Francisco, he wanted to have that edge again should his team, which currently has the best record in the AL, get there this year. A change is still needed, however. If the game is going to count, fans should not be voting in the starting lineups.

09 Jul

the energizer

When All-Star left fielder Alex Gordon went down, Kansas City needed a lift. Enter Jarrod Dyson. Dyson, the ex-Southwest Mississippi Community College standout, replaced the injured Gordon, threw out a runner at the plate, hit an inside-the-park home run and helped the Royals beat Tampa Bay 9-7 on Wednesday night. “He brings energy, is what he brings,” KC manager Ned Yost told the Kansas City Star, referring to the speedy Dyson, whose twitter handle is @mrzoombiya. Dyson’s playing time has been limited this season – 42 games, 99 at-bats – but with Gordon expected to miss a significant amount of time with a groin injury, Dyson likely will get more opportunities for the first-place Royals. He is batting .273 (.321 on-base percentage) with 16 runs and 10 steals. His homer Wednesday was his first of the season and first inside-the-parker of his career. P.S. Matt Harrison got knocked around (six runs in four innings vs. Arizona) but just getting back on the mound for Texas on Wednesday was a victory for the former Mississippi Braves left-hander. Harrison is trying to come back from spinal fusion surgery. His last MLB start had come on May 13 of 2014. Injuries have limited the former 18-game winner to seven appearances the last three seasons. Harrison went 8-11 with an ERA around 3.50 for the M-Braves in 2006-07, when he was one of Atlanta’s top-rated prospects. He went to Texas in the Mark Teixeira trade.

08 Jul

just another day …

There were no walk-off homers, or any homers at all by Mississippi-connected players. Nobody had a bunch of hits or drove in a bunch of runs. No quality starts were delivered, no holds or saves recorded. And yet, Mississippians made their mark in Tuesday’s MLB games, splattering numbers all over the 17 box scores. Twelve Mississippians (natives or college alums) played on Tuesday, and they collectively delivered six hits, five walks, five runs, two steals, a sac fly, a win and 2 2/3 scoreless innings of pitching. The line of the day belongs to Southwest Mississippi Community College product and McComb native Jarrod Dyson. In Kansas City’s 7-1 win over Tampa Bay in Game 2 of a twinbill, Dyson put up a 2-3-1-0 with two walks and a stolen base. P.S. On this date in 1941, Ted Williams hit his legendary three-run, ninth-inning, game-winning home run in the All-Star Game at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. The pitch was delivered by Claude Passeau, one of the greatest pitchers Mississippi has produced. The Waynesboro native and Millsaps College alum, who won 162 games in the big leagues, was working his third inning for the National League and would have been a winner (by a 5-3 score) had a double play been turned before Williams’ at-bat. Hall of Fame broadcaster Red Barber of Columbus called the game for Mutual Radio.

06 Jul

star charts

While we wait to see if Southern Miss alum Brian Dozier is picked for his first All-Star Game and if ex-Mississippi Braves star Brian McCann gets to make an eighth appearance, here’s what we do know about the upcoming All-Star buffet: Biloxi’s Orlando Arcia, one of Milwaukee’s top prospects, is headed to the All-Star Futures Game, set for July 12 in Cincinnati. Arcia, a shortstop from Venezuela, is batting .313 with four homers, 42 RBIs and 10 steals for the Double-A Shuckers. And Louis Coleman, the former Pillow Academy star and Greenwood native, is on the Pacific Coast League roster for the Triple-A All-Star Game, which is July 15 in Omaha. Coleman, 29, is 4-1 with a 1.58 ERA and six saves for Omaha in the Kansas City system. He has a 3.25 ERA over 148 major league games with the Royals, though he is no longer on the 40-man roster. … The MLB Home Run Derby contestants have not been finalized, but former Mississippi State star Mitch Moreland would be a good choice. He has 14 homers for Texas this season and has hit some mammoth blasts in his career. The revamped derby is slated July 13 at Cincy’s Great American Ballpark, a great hitter’s park. P.S. Seth Smith, the ex-Ole Miss standout, delivered in the clutch for Seattle on Sunday, stroking a two-out, two-run single on a 3-2 pitch and propelling the Mariners to a 2-1 win at Oakland. “I loved playing (at O.Co Coliseum) when I was with the A’s and especially day games have a good buzz,” Smith told mlb.com. Smith is 9-for-27 with a homer and five RBIs this year against the A’s, one of the four teams he has played for the last five years. He is batting .257 on the season with seven homers.