Sunday, September 18 vs. Montgomery Biscuits: 2:05 PM: Trustmark Park
September 18, 2022 – Southern League (SL) – Mississippi Braves News Release
Sunday, September 18, 2022 | 2:05 PM CT | Trustmark Park| Pearl, MS
Mississippi Braves (ATL) (61-74, 32-34, T-3rd SL South, -9.0) vs.
Montgomery Biscuits (TB) (70-60, 42-26, 1st SL South, +8.5)
Starting Pitchers: LHP Hayden Deal (3-4, 4.34) vs. LHP John Doxakis (2-6, 5.31)
Game #136 | 2nd Half #67 | Home Game #67
Today’s Roster Moves
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Today’s Promotions:
World Series Replica Ring Giveaway: The first 1,000 fans will receive Atlanta Braves 2021 World Series Replica Rings presented by Howard Technology Solutions and Crestron!
Photo with a Brave Day: Come before the game and grab a selfie with your favorite M-Braves player on the field from 1:30-1:50!
Raising Cane’s Sunday Family Fun Day: The M-Braves invite you to bring your entire family out for some Sunday baseball at Trustmark Park! For $25 per person, fans get a game ticket, hat, hotdog, and drink voucher! Tickets must be purchased at the M-Braves box office.
Kids Run the Bases: Kids get a chance to run the bases just like the pros after the game!
TODAY’S GAME: The M-Braves wrap a six-game series against the Montgomery Biscuits at Trustmark Park. This is the final game of the regular season. The M-Braves will finish the 2022 season with today’s game while the Biscuits are on to the playoffs with a best-of-three series against Pensacola starting on Tuesday at Riverwalk Stadium.
ABOUT LAST NIGHT: The Biscuits blanked the M-Braves 4-0 to take three games to two lead in the series. The Biscuits pitching staff held the M-Braves to just two hits for the second straight night. Montgomery scored the first two runs of the game in the second and added insurance runs in the seventh and the eighth. RHP Nolan Kingham battled through five innings, allowing two runs, one earned, with five strikeouts and no walks. His counterpart, LHP Mason Montgomery, tossed six shutout innings and gave up just one hit and one walk.
THE SLUGBAUER MAKING MISSISSIPPI HISTORY: 1B Drew Lugbauer has hit a club-record 46 career M-Braves home runs over two seasons. He hit 18 home runs in 2021 and leads the league with 28 in 2022. On Sept. 9 at Biloxi, he broke the franchise single-season home run record, surpassing Ernesto Mejia (2011) and Mike Hessman’s (2001) single-season franchise record (26). Lugbauer also set a club record with seven RBI on Saturday, July 2 at Biloxi.
– Lugbauer hit a walk-off three-run homer on July 8 vs. Pensacola and a walk-off single on June 3 vs. Montgomery. He is in the league’s top 10 in…home runs (28, 1st), RBI (81, 1st), XBH (52, 2nd), walks (74, T-3rd), doubles (24, T-9th), and total bases (207, 2nd).
ME MO MORITZ: Andrew Moritz homered in back-to-back games on Tuesday and Wednesday, for his first two long balls of the season, logging four hits in each game. In the series, the outfielder went 9-for-18 with two homers, three doubles, five RBI, and seven runs. Moritz became the first M-Brave to log back-to-back four-hit games since Emerson Landoni had back to- back five hits games, July 12-13 at Chattanooga in 2015. His efforts earned him Southern League Player of the Week.
STRONG STARTING PITCHING: The M-Braves just lost a streak of eight games where the starting pitcher made it at least five innings (8/30-9/8), posting a 3.29 ERA (15 ER, 41.0 IP) over that span. The starting pitcher has gone at least five innings in 14 of the last 16 games.
THE GORDON MOBILE: RHP Tanner Gordon is 4-2 with a 3.00 ERA (11 ER/33.0 IP) over his last six starts. He has 34 strikeouts to seven walks over those starts. The right-hander’s ERA has improved each month, highlighted by a 3-0 record and a 3.43 ERA over four starts in August.
DODDZY: Since his promotion on July 12, LHP Dylan Dodd is 2-4 with a 3.11 ERA in 46.1 innings over nine starts. In August, Dodd posted a 2.08 ERA in four starts, going an unlucky 0-3. The left-hander has allowed no more than two runs in seven of nine starts with three quality starts.
CALL HIM MR. MALLOY: In August, Justyn-Henry Malloy hit .301 in August with three home runs, eight doubles, 15 RBI, 20 walks, 20 runs, and .935 OPS. He shot up the most recent prospect rankings, jumping up 14 spots to No. 13 in the Braves MLB Pipeline Top 30.
– Last week at Biloxi, the Georgia Tech product reached base 16 times. He went 8-for-22 with a home run, five RBI, and seven walks.
BIG BAD BUNNELL: Cade Bunnell is currently in his third stint with the M-Braves this season. In 43 games for Mississippi, he is batting .301 with eight home runs, 11 doubles, two triples, 32 RBI, 31 walks, and .989 OPS. Bunnell was a 40th-round pick in 2019 by Atlanta.
– Bunnell logged his first multi-homer game on August 25 at Birmingham, smashing a solo
home run in the fourth, and a three-run shot in the ninth. Since being promoted for a third time on August 10, he is batting .278 with six homers, 20 walks, 26 RBI, and a .925 OPS in 31 games.
TAKE ‘EM TO THE DELI: INF Riley Delgado keeps on hitting, ranking 6th in the Southern League with a .272 batting average. He holds an 18-game on-base streak, the second longest active streak in the Southern League (Logan O’Hoppe, 28). He had an eight-game hit streak from 7/23-8/4 and an 11-game hit streak from 5/13-25.
M-BRAVES TO MLB IN 2022: OF Drew Waters (8/22), C Shea Langeliers (8/16), RHP Freddy Tarnok (8/16), INF Vaughn Grissom (8/10), INF Joey Meneses (WSH, 8/2), RHP William Woods (ATL, 4/27), RHP Bryce Elder (4/12), OF Michael Harris II (5/28 from MIS), and LHP Joey Wentz (DET, 5/11) as former M-Braves to make their MLB debut this season. In total, 160 have made their debuts, and 23 have been promoted directly from Mississippi since 2005.
THE COMEBACK KIDS: The M-Braves have come back in the eighth inning or later 10 times this season after just two such comebacks last season. Against the Barons, the M-Braves scored four of the final five runs to win an 11-inning thriller on August 27. On August 29, Bunnell smashed a game-winning grand slam in the ninth. On September 2, the M-Braves scored four runs in the eighth in a 9-7 comeback win over the Smokies.
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