Tag Archives: yankees

15 May

have a day

On Tim Anderson Bobblehead Night at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago, it was only fitting that the former East Central Community College standout would play a leading role in the White Sox’s walk-off 3-2 win against the New York Yankees. With the score knotted at 2-2 Saturday, Anderson got a one-out single in the ninth inning off Aroldis Chapman. Yankees broadcasters credited Anderson with distracting Chapman into walking the next batter and then falling behind 3-0 to Luis Robert. On a 3-1 pitch, Robert poked a single into right field and Anderson scored the winning run from second base just ahead of a throw by Aaron Judge. The bobblehead commemorated Anderson’s walk-off homer vs. the Yankees in the Field of Dreams Game last summer. The dynamic Anderson went 3-for-5 Saturday, boosting his average to .339, second in the American League. He was just the brightest star on a day filled with shining moments from Mississippians in the majors. To wit: In the ChiSox-Yankees game, Mississippi State alum Kendall Graveman pitched two scoreless innings (the sixth and seventh) for Chicago, registered his eighth hold and trimmed his ERA to 1.56 in 15 games. … In Atlanta, a scuffling Austin Riley, the ex-DeSoto Central High star, went 3-for-4 and delivered the game-deciding run in the eighth inning of a crazy 6-5 victory over San Diego. … In St. Louis, MSU product Dakota Hudson blanked San Francisco over five innings, picking up the win — he is 3-2, 3.06 — as the Cardinals stopped the Giants’ six-game win streak 4-0. McComb native Corey Dickerson went 1-for-4 for the Cards. … Former Southern Miss standout Nick Sandlin picked up a win for Cleveland, working 1 1/3 scoreless innings (in the eighth and ninth) in the Guardians’ 3-2, 10-inning win against Minnesota. Sandlin is 3-1 with a 3.65 ERA in 12 games in middle relief. … Chris Stratton, the MSU product from Tupelo, struck out two batters in the eighth inning and got his fourth hold for Pittsburgh in a 3-1 win against Cincinnati. … Hunter Renfroe, the former State star from Crystal Springs, belted his ninth home run in Milwaukee’s 9-3 loss to Miami. He is tied for the National League lead in homers. … Ole Miss alum Mike Mayers, who has found his form in recent outings, worked a scoreless ninth inning for the Los Angeles Angels in their 9-1 win vs. Oakland in Game 2 of a twinbill.

28 Dec

catching up

Colby White, a Mississippi State product drafted by Tampa Bay in 2019, made the Rays’ Organization All-Star team as selected by milb.com. White, a right-handed reliever, posted a 1.44 ERA while rising through four levels of the minors in 2021. Would not be a surprise to see him in the big leagues in 2022. One scout has compared White to Craig Kimbrel, which is some high praise. … Ole Miss alum and erstwhile big leaguer Jacob Waguespack has signed with the Orix Buffaloes in Japan. Waguespack spent all of 2021 in the minors for Toronto; he went 5-5 with a 5.08 ERA in 27 games for the Blue Jays in 2019-20. … Ex-State standout Jonathan Holder, who recently re-signed a minor league deal with the Chicago Cubs, has been invited to big league spring camp. Holder, an MLB vet with a 4.38 ERA, did not pitch in the majors in 2021 because of a shoulder problem. He made two appearances in the Cubs’ minor league system and was dropped from the 40-man roster after the season. … Former MSU star Travis Chapman, a longtime minor league manager and coach, has been named the New York Yankees’ first base coach. … The Biloxi Shuckers got a shout-out (sorta) in Sports Illustrated’s year-end issue thanks to one of the craziest games of 2021. In a May 6 Double-A South contest at Birmingham, the Shuckers drew 13 walks and an HBP in one inning, scoring 12 runs en route to a 14-6 win over the Barons. SI’s Steve Rushin labeled it “Baron Wasteland” in his witty summary of the year’s oddest events. … The change in ownership of the Mississippi Braves franchise (from the Atlanta Braves/Liberty Media to Diamond Baseball Holdings) won’t affect the team’s affiliation with Atlanta or its location in Pearl, but one has to wonder if a name change might happen down the road. … Ready or not, the college season in Mississippi is slated to open on Feb. 2, when Rust College visits Tuskegee for a doubleheader that will also mark the debut of Bearcats coach John Bates. William Carey University, another NAIA program, opens at home in Hattiesburg on Feb. 4 against Lindsey Wilson. NAIA Tougaloo College starts Feb. 5 with a twinbill at Xavier of New Orleans. Tougaloo recently named its home field after longtime coach Earl Sanders, the ex-Jackson State star; the Bulldogs’ first game there is set for Feb. 19.

24 Sep

what’s on tap

At Trustmark Park in Pearl, the Mississippi Braves will try to take another step toward their second pennant when they host Montgomery in Game 3 (6:35 p.m.) of the Double-A South Championship Series. The M-Braves, 2008 champs in the Southern League, evened the series at 1-1 with an 8-5 win in the second game on Wednesday. Spencer Strider (3-7, 4.71 ERA), a 2020 Atlanta draft pick out of Clemson, goes to the bump for the M-Braves. The right-hander has 94 strikeouts in 63 innings over 14 starts. Trey Harris drove in three runs, Wendell Rijo homered, Justin Dean stole two bases and scored twice and the M-Braves bullpen finished with four scoreless innings in Game 2.
At Canal Park in Akron, Ohio, former Mississippi State standout Konnor Pilkington starts for the Akron Rubber Ducks in Game 3 of the Double-A Northeast title series against Bowie. The Ducks are up 2-0. Pilkington, a left-hander, went 3-2, 2.33 for Akron after coming over to Cleveland’s system from the Chicago White Sox. He is 7-6, 3.04 overall in 2021. Bowie’s shortstop is ex-State star Jordan Westburg, who hit .232 with four homers for the Baltimore farm club; he has 15 homers on the season.
At Wrigley Field, George County High product Justin Steele will try to stop St. Louis’ 12-game win streak when the rookie left-hander takes the mound for Chicago in Game 1 of a pair. Steele is 1-3, 5.12 in seven starts since the Cubs moved him from the bullpen. None of the Cardinals hitters have faced him. In the unlikely event the lowly Cubs sweep the Cardinals today, Milwaukee can clinch the National League Central with a win against the visiting New York Mets at American Family Field.
And at Fenway Park, there’s the always enthralling renewal of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Boston leads New York by 2 games in the American League wild card battle with Toronto lurking a game back of the Yanks. Gerrit Cole (15-8, 3.03) starts for the Yankees; ex-MSU star Hunter Renfroe, the Red Sox’s right fielder, is 3-for-18 with no RBIs career against the right-hander.

09 Sep

in select company

In his first season with Boston, Hunter Renfroe is rubbing elbows (virtually, of course) with Red Sox legends. In a jaw-dropping performance on Wednesday night at Fenway Park, in the heat of the battle for playoff spots, former Mississippi State star Renfroe hit a game-turning home run and made a game-ending throw. The Red Sox beat division rival Tampa Bay 2-1 and moved into first place – ahead of New York – in the American League wild card race. Renfroe, cut loose by the Rays after the 2020 season, launched a two-run homer in the eighth inning to put the Sox ahead. “There’s your magic, baby,” screamed one of the Boston broadcasters. There was more to come. In the ninth, Renfroe scrambled into deep center field to run down a ball hit by Joey Wendle and fired a cannon shot to nail Wendle at third base to end the game. It was the second assist of the night for Renfroe, who has 16 on the season, the most by a Boston right fielder since at least 1961, per mlb.com. Move over Dwight Evans. Renfroe’s homer was his 27th. He is just the sixth player in Boston’s long history with 25-plus homers and 15-plus assists in a season, again per mlb.com. Others on the list: Jason Bay, Manny Ramirez, Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski and Ted Williams. Renfroe is batting .267 and slugging .515 with 85 RBIs. He has 12 bombs since Aug. 1. “What he’s done for us this season, it’s been amazing,” manager Joey Cora said in an mlb.com piece. P.S. In other impactful games, MSU product Adam Frazier, in need of some big hits, went 2-for-4 with three RBIs in San Diego’s 8-5 win against the Los Angeles Angels. In a funk since joining the Padres at the trade deadline, Frazier doubled his RBI total and raised his average to .235 in 35 games with his new club, which is clinging to second in the National League wild card chase. … At Yankee Stadium, in red-hot Toronto’s 6-3 win over the skidding Yankees, Jarrod Dyson did what Jarrod Dyson do: The McComb native entered the game late as a pinch runner, scored on a sac fly and then ended the game with a diving catch in center field. The Blue Jays trail the Yankees by 1.5 games for the second AL wild card.

08 Sep

must see tv

Tonight’s marquee game in the big leagues has to be Toronto at New York, slated to be televised by MLB Network at 6:05 CDT from Yankee Stadium. Three Mississippians are among the cast: McComb natives and Mississippi junior college products Corey Dickerson and Jarrod Dyson play for the suddenly sizzling Blue Jays; Louisville native and East Central CC product Marcus Thames is the hitting coach for the Jekyll-and-Hyde Yankees, currently in an ugly slide. The Blue Jays (75-62) have won six in a row and nine of 10 to move within 2 games of the second wild card berth in the American League. They lead all of MLB in homers and have hit seven in the first two games of this series. The Yankees, who had ripped off a 13-game win streak that moved them to the top of the wild card standings, have dropped four straight and eight of 10. New York (78-60) lost the first two games of this series 8-0 and 5-1, failing to record a walk or an extra-base hit in successive games for only the fourth time in team history. Dickerson (Meridian CC) is batting .277 with three homers and 12 RBIs in 29 games for the Jays since he was acquired in a trade with Miami. He’ll lead off tonight against Yankees rookie right-hander Luis Gil. Dyson (Southwest CC), a recent waiver claim from Kansas City, serves mainly as a defensive replacement and pinch runner. He is at .220 for the season with 10 steals, two for Toronto. It’s surely been a frustrating season for Thames, in his fourth year as the Yanks’ hitting coach. A lineup loaded with sluggers ranks 11th in the league in scoring, first in grounding into double plays and seventh in strikeouts. Only one batter in tonight’s lineup is batting above .266.

23 Aug

around the horn

Not so long ago, New York Yankees hitting coach Marcus Thames, the former East Central Community College star, was on a hot seat, as was manager Aaron Boone. For the better part of three months, the club struggled to score, foundering with runners in scoring position, frequently striking out or hitting into double plays. Well, that seems like ancient history now. The Yankees, finally fit and fortified with new additions to the lineup, are sizzling hot as they head into Truist Park in Atlanta, where the eyes of the baseball world will be on a two-game series between the hottest teams in the game. Both have won nine straight. The Yankees have climbed to 72-52, second in the American League East. The Braves are 68-56, first in the National League East. … Atlanta’s Mississippi connection, third baseman Austin Riley, the DeSoto Central High product, is batting .342 during the win streak, with four homers, six RBIs and nine runs. … Ex-Mississippi State standout Kendall Graveman, now with Houston, faced his former team, Seattle, for the first time on Sunday. He gave up a run in his one inning but maintained the lead, which the Astros later squandered en route to a 6-3, extra-inning loss. Graveman has allowed two runs in nine innings for the Astros; he had a 0.82 ERA in 30 appearances for the Mariners. Graveman was upset when Seattle traded him in late July. … In his third game at Low-A Salem, former DeSoto Central star Blaze Jordan hit his second homer, this one a grand slam. The first-year pro is 3-for-11 for Salem after hitting .362 with four homers for Boston’s Florida Complex League team. … Just in time for the start of fall classes, Alcorn State has hired a new coach. Reggie Williams, a former major league outfielder, was named last Friday to fill the post previously held by Brett Richardson. He was not retained after a 7-20 season. Williams is a Southern University alum who played in the big leagues in the 1980s. He previously worked as an instructor and coach in the Cincinnati and Milwaukee organizations and was also an educator in the Memphis school system. Three of the state’s HBCUs will have new coaches in 2022. Stanley Stubbs moves from Rust College to Mississippi Valley State, and John Bates was promoted from Stubbs’ staff to replace him as Bearcats coach. … Three Mississippians were on the West roster for Sunday’s Perfect Game All-American Classic in San Diego: outfielder Emaarion “Mari” Boyd of South Panola, outfielder Dakota Jordan of Jackson Academy and catcher Ross Highfill of Madison Central. All are 2022 seniors. The West was no-hit by the East in a 9-1 defeat at Petco Park.

13 Aug

center stage

“Baseball, among many other things, is theater, a definition that mandates that a very small number of players will be strikingly distinctive because of productivity and ‘presence.’” – Donald Honig, Baseball America.
There has never been a stage quite like the one MLB created for Thursday night’s Field of Dreams Game. A cornfield in Iowa. So, of course, leave it to Tim Anderson, the former East Central Community College star who relishes the spotlight as much as any player in the game, to bring down the curtain with a game-ending home run into the corn stalks beyond right field. You might call it a Roy Hobbs moment, though that’s from a different movie than the one that inspired this game. Anderson’s second career walk-off bomb gave the Chicago White Sox a 9-8 win against the New York Yankees. “These are the moments you want to be in,” Anderson, the effervescent leader of these Sox, said in a postgame interview. “These big games like this, this is the time to show up.” The game actually lived up to the hype, which was not easy to do. There were five lead changes. Though 17 runs crossed the plate, pitchers also enjoyed some moments with 23 strikeouts. Anderson’s game-winner was the last of eight balls that left the park and crash-landed in the cornfield. Dramatic doesn’t quite get it. As Ray Kinsella might have said, “It’s more than that. It’s perfect.”

14 Jul

circle the date

It happened on July 14, 2002. It had never happened before that in the big leagues and would happen only four times after that. Bill Selby, the pride of Horn Lake and a former Southern Miss star, hit a walk-off grand slam against Mariano Rivera on that date at Cleveland’s Jacobs Field. Rivera, the Hall of Famer and MLB’s all-time saves leader, had not allowed a walk-off bomb in his seven previous seasons as the New York Yankees’ closer. He yielded only four more over the next 11 years. The July 14 homer was the only walk-off Selby hit in five big league seasons. He hit only 11 homers all told. Talk about catching lightning in a bottle. Now a coach at Northwest Mississippi Community College, Selby eloquently and humbly described his star turn in a published interview a few years back: “You put yourself in a position to be successful and if it happens, then be thankful and keep on trucking. Not everyone can do what those guys (MLB stars) do. I certainly use that as motivation and to help people understand that you don’t have to be ‘the guy’ to have a ‘the guy’ moment.” Of all the homers struck by Mississippians (natives or college alums) in big league history, Selby’s improbable game-ender vs. Rivera is arguably the most memorable. Here’s a few more to round out a top 10:
2. Will Clark’s homer against Nolan Ryan in his first career at-bat in 1986.
3. Rafael Palmeiro’s 500th homer on May 11, 2003; he’s the only state product in that club.
4. Dmitri Young’s three home runs on opening day 2005, making him the third player ever to achieve that feat.
5. Marcus Thames’ homer against Randy Johnson on the first pitch he saw in the big leagues in 2002.
6. Brian Dozier’s American League-record 40th homer as a second baseman on Sept. 26, 2016; he hit 42 on the year, most ever by a Mississippi native.
7. Bill Hall’s Mother’s Day walk-off blast, with a pink bat and his mom in the stands, in 2006.
8. Luke Easter’s 477-foot bomb in 1950 at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, the longest ever hit there.
9. Brandon Woodruff’s homer off Clayton Kershaw in Game 1 of the 2018 NLCS.
10 (tie). Anthony Alford’s first career homer, a walk-off in the 15th inning on Sept. 24, 2019, and Jack Reed’s only career homer, a 22nd-inning game-winner on June 24, 1962.
Honorable mentions: Bobby Kielty’s pinch-hit homer in Game 4 of the 2007 World Series in what would be his last major league at-bat. Mitch Moreland’s two-out, three-run pinch homer in Game 4 of the 2018 World Series. Austin Riley’s 448-foot go-ahead homer in Game 1 of the 2020 NLCS. Dave Parker’s big blast in the strike-ending All-Star Game in 1981. Hunter Renfroe’s homer onto the roof of the Western Metal Supply Co. building outside Petco Park in September 2016. Tim Anderson’s brawl-inducing bat-flip homer in April 2019.

26 Jun

friday at fenway

If you’re gonna have a moment in the big leagues, there’s no better place to do it than Fenway Park during a Yankees-Red Sox game on a Friday night. Hunter Renfroe, the former Mississippi State standout, earned a spot in Boston lore on an electric night that featured a packed house of 36,000-plus and a pregame tribute to Dustin Pedroia. Renfroe drove in two runs, scored one and cut down a runner at the plate with a sizzling throw in the Red Sox’s 5-3 win, their fourth in as many games against New York this season. “Obviously, this is the thing you live for,” the Crystal Springs native said in an mlb.com story. “These are the games you live for.” Renfroe is in his first season with the Red Sox after being unceremoniously cut loose by Tampa Bay after a down year in 2020. He started slowly but has picked it up of late, batting .308 with four homers and 17 RBIs in his last 30 games. He was 4-for-10 in Boston’s sweep at Yankee Stadium earlier this month. On Friday, his stamp was all over the place. He doubled in a run to cap a three-run first inning and hit a sac fly to make it 4-3 in the third. In the top of the fourth, the Yankees’ Gio Urshela tried to score from second on a single to right field. Bad idea. Renfroe’s 94.7 mph throw covered 190 feet on the fly — per Statcast — and nailed Urshela by five feet. Fenway went wild. Renfroe now has 11 assists, best in the majors. He has 41 career assists. Renfroe capped his night by scoring after drawing a walk in the eighth, stretching the Red Sox’s lead. “I’ve been saying Friday nights at Fenway are cool,” Boston manager Alex Cora told mlb.com. “They’re pretty cool, and it was another great atmosphere.” They’ll play again today. Renfroe probably can’t wait.

01 Jun

pinstripe panic?

The New York Yankees are slumping again. Two months into a six-month season, fans and media types are expressing concern that the Yanks (29-25) might do the unthinkable: Miss the postseason. Panic much? That’s how it goes in Pinstripe Nation. It’s only natural to wonder if Louisville native Marcus Thames, the team’s hitting coach, is feeling any heat. After all, the New York Mets fired hitting coach Chili Davis in early May, 23 games into their season. Here’s what Thames said (to northjersey.com) in late April, when the Yankees were also scuffling: “I’m in every at-bat with those guys. I’m in every at-bat, every pitch, every swing. I’ve got to stay the same. I’ve got to keep my body language the same because they’re watching and I just have to make sure that I stay positive, let them know that you’re going to come out of this.” They did. They won 16 of their first 21 games in May. But the last seven saw the hitters go cold again. They went 4-for-33 with runners in scoring position while losing six of the seven. They managed just 13 runs over that span. They’re in third place in the American League East, with the two teams ahead of them (Tampa Bay and Boston) in town this week. It could be a pivotal stretch. Thames is in his fourth season as the head hitting coach, and while the team has made the postseason each of the first three years, it has fallen short of the World Series. That’s the standard in the Bronx.