three things

In a home run-mad month in the major leagues, nobody hit more than Brian Dozier, the pride of Itawamba AHS and Southern Miss. Dozier hit his 13th August bomb on Wednesday in Minnesota’s 8-4 loss to Cleveland. In Twins history, only Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew hit more homers in a month (14 in June 1964). Dozier has 32 on the year and 107 in his MLB career. This from a 5-foot-11, 200-pound second baseman who hit 16 homers in his four-season minor league career and 16 in four years at USM. Nobody saw this coming – or did they? “There’s not a whole lot that the guy can’t do,” USM coach Scott Berry recently told WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg. Berry said he could tell Dozier was a special player when he won the starting shortstop job as a true freshman. … In his second big league game, former Richton High star JaCoby Jones led off the ninth inning with a double and then scored the game-winning run for Detroit, diving across home plate on a sac fly to beat the Chicago White Sox 3-2. Tyler Collins’ fly ball to left with one out wasn’t deep, so Jones and third-base coach Dave Clark, the former Shannon High and Jackson State star, had to make a snap judgement. “I really couldn’t understand (Clark),” Jones told mlb.com. “I’m pretty sure he was just saying, ‘Go, you’ve gotta run.’ I was going to go anyway, regardless, unless he was just (imploring) me to stop.” Jones is 4-for-8 with two RBIs and three runs for the Tigers, who are battling for a playoff berth. … Hunter Renfroe, the former Mississippi State standout from Crystal Springs (and Copiah Academy), belted his 29th homer for Triple-A El Paso. The right fielder is hitting .306 with 104 RBIs and 94 runs in 128 games. Certainly, he is ready for a big league look. But San Diego reportedly will wait until El Paso’s season is over to call up Renfroe. The Chihuahuas have five regular season games remaining and then the Pacific Coast League championship series.