Is Seth Smith the next big “Moneyball” player for the Oakland Athletics?

The A's surely would be delighted if the Ole Miss product delivered on that kind of promise. He was their most significant offseason acquisition, but got off to a slow start – hitting .197 as recently as April 30.

But Smith was hitting .367 (11 of 30) for the month of May through Tuesday night, and he swung a big bat in Oakland's 5-0 win over the L.A. Angels late Monday. He doubled and scored in the fourth inning, then hit a bases-loaded double to score a couple of runs in the fifth. 

"This is what we envisioned from him," Oakland manager Bob Melvin told MLB.com, saying the team hoped he would prove to be a valuable middle-of-the-lineup bat.

Smith, a second-round draft pick by Colorado in 2004, played his first five seasons in the Rockies' hitter-friendly environs. He's a .273 career hitter and I spent some time late Tuesday looking at his career stats to see why Oakland GM Billy Beane thought he might be worth dealing a couple of pitchers to obtain, then pay $2.4 million this season.

I wonder if it might be a matter of Smith's OPS – a stat that combines on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Smith flirted with the magic .900 number in 2009, when he hit 15 homers and had a healthy .378 OBP.

I'm no Bill James, but maybe Beane and his baseball guys saw something. That's why they get the big bucks – and why Seth Smith is enjoying a healthy payday as well.

The plot will soon thicken in Oakland when Manny Ramirez becomes eligible to join the roster after serving a 50-game drug suspension. Manny – who starts a minor-league rehab stint on Saturday – is likely to DH, which means Smith would likely get most of his at-bats in left field.

For what it's worth, Smith was a somewhat better hitter when playing in left field for Colorado over the past three seasons.  

Minnesota Twins rookie shortstop Brian Dozier, the former Itawamba AHS and Southern Miss standout, hit his first major-league home run on Sunday.

After the game, Dozier was able to get the ball back from the fan who caught it - in exchange for some autogaphed balls and a pair of batting gloves - and said he'll send it, and the pink cleats he wore on Sunday, to his mom in Fulton as a belated Mother's Day present. Story from the Twins MLB.com site here and another, more detailed version from a Fox Sports site here. And here is a story from the Star Tribune newspaper that talks more about Dozier's defense.

And here is a dandy story from the Pioneer Press newspaper - complete with a slideshow - that talks about Dozier's life growing up in Fulton and his path from there to the major leagues. It's nice work.

With a team that only reached 10 wins on Sunday - the last MLB team to double digits, the Twin Cities is embracing Brian Dozier as a feel-good story. When everything goes right, as it did on Sunday, that's easy.

Bill Hall, the veteran major leaguer from Nettleton, didn't make the New York Yankees' roster out of spring training, but now he's in the Baltimore Orioles' organization.

Hall, 32, is playing for the Triple-A Norfolk Tides. Through Wednewsday, he was hitting .241 in 11 games, with 11 runs scored and 7 RBIs.

A couple of skills might earn Hall another shot in the big leagues. He's versatile enough to play just about any infield position and has logged time as an outfielder as well. Plus, he's tearing up left-handed pitching (.444, 8 of 18 with both of his home runs) at Norfork.

It's a small sample size, but he has a .263 career batting average as a big-league pinch-hitter, another valuable skill.

By all appearances, Hall is now in the declining phase of his career. That 35-home season for Milwaukee in 2006 was the high-water mark. But it's reasonable to think that he might eventually find a home on the bench for the Orioles if they continue to contend in the AL East.

With their season already starting to slip away in the face of a 7-20 start, the Minnesota Twins are calling up shortstop Brian Dozier, the former Itawamba AHS and Southern Miss standout. The Minneapolis newspaper has a blog post here.

Dozier will join the team in time for Monday's series opener at home against the L.A. Angels. During spring training, Dozier - an eighth-round pick in 2008 out of Southern Miss - was described as "the next big thing" for the Twins franchise.

He's hitting .276 at Triple-A Rochester. Last season, he hit a combined .320 and led the Twins minor-league organization in runs scored (92) and triples (12)

The Twins aren't calling up Dozier - their 2011 minor leaguer of the year - to sit on the bench. Manager Ron Gardenhire said in a radio interview on Sunday that he plans to install Dozier as his everyday shortstop. Details here (new link), complete with some MLB video.

Minnesota, which has lost 11 of its last 13, went into Sunday's game hitting .113 on its current road trip and there are rumblings that Gardenhire could be in trouble. So all eyes will be on Dozier.

Former Mississippi State standout Buck Showalter picked up his 1,000th career victory as a major-league manager on Tuesday night as his Baltimore Orioles won at Yankee Stadium. The AP's story here.

We crossed paths in Nashville, during Showalter's run as a minor-league first baseman in the Yankees' organization. In an interview near the end of his time with the Double-A Sounds - gosh, I wish there was a link to that somwhere - he told me in an interview that he was planning to pursue managing when his playing days were through Good call.

Here are other takes on the game, from The Baltimore Sun here, and MLB.com here.

Our friends at the Clarion-Ledger have posted the matchups for this week's MHSAA baseball quarterfinals. By my count, there are 15 teams from the Journal's circulation "footprint," and several spots where we're guaranteed at least one team into the semifinals.

In Classes 3A and 2A, we're already assured of a state finalist.

I've got to be honest, it's weird to not see Tupelo H.S. on this list.

Here's a look at the Friday matchups. Game 2 would be at the other site on Saturday and a Game 3, if needed, would be back at these listed sites on Monday.

Class 6A

North

NW Rankin at Southaven

Madison Central at Clinton

South

Harrison Central at Petal

Gulfport at Oak Grove

Class 5A

North

Oxford at Hernando

Starkville at. New Hope

South

Long Beach at South Jones

Pearl River Central at Pascagoula 

Class 4A

North

Lafayette at New Albany

Cleveland at Lewisburg 

South

Magee at West Lauderdale

Purvis at Richland

Class 3A

North

South Pontotoc at Kossuth

Alcorn Central at Belmont

South

Sumrall at SE Lauderdale

Forest at St. Andrew's

Class 2A

North

Bruce vs. Hamilton

East Union at Hatley

South

Wesson at Taylorsville

Enterprise-Lincoln at Clarkdale

Class 1A

North

West Union at Tupelo Christian

Smithville at Greenville St. Joseph

South

Stringer at Nanih Waiya

Cathedral at Pelahatchie 

It's hard to see this ending well for the Mississippi Hound Dogs.

The first-year indoor pro football team fell to 1-6 on Saturday night with a third consecutive home loss, 60-25 against the Eastern Kentucky Drillers.

That's back-to-back ugly home efforts, after a 60-12 thumping by the Lakeland Raiders on April 7.

Saturday's loss assures the team of a losing season – the Hound Dogs have four games left, two at home and two on the road. And while a victory over the Drillers would have provided the Dogs with a possible path to the six-team UIFL playoffs, it's not reasonable to ponder that now.

Beyond the question of wins and losses is the issue of the team's continued viability in the Northeast Mississippi market.

The official ticket-sales number for Saturday's game was a season-low 780. That's probably close to the actual headcount, and it's way short of the 2,000-plus needed for the team's budget to work.

There might have been a FireAnts crowd that small back in the day, I can't say for sure. And it's hard to compare headcounts with the MudCats, as they were more generous with freebie tickets in an effort to get fans in the stands. 

But budget issues were behind the whispers at midweek that the team might not be in a position to play on Saturday. Road trips – the team goes to Florida this weekend – represent an additional expense with no potential offset from home gate receipts, if any.

Hound Dogs officials talked about this inaugural season helping to build toward the team's future in Tupelo. It's hard to see how this season has done anything but bolster the case that Tupelo and Northeast Mississippi still isn't populous enough to support a minor league sports franchise.

There will be a dozen runners from the Daily Journal circulation area in Monday’s Boston Marathon.

That group includes the top area finisher from a year ago, Bret Beauchamp of Oxford. He finished 1,157th overall in 2:57:19 and will be looking for his fourth consecutive Boston finish.

Corinth’s Kenneth Williams, 70, will be trying to finish the Boston race for the 11th time. He ran a 4:08:02 last year and finished 68th in his division, 17,670 overall.

There were 12 area finishers last year.

You can follow the race online at www.baa.org and on the Universal Sports TV network starting at 8:30 a.m., where available.

Drew Pomeranz, the former first-round draft pick out of Ole Miss, is set for his 2012 major league debut on Sunday.

Pomeranz threw four shutout innings on Tuesday in a tuneup for his first major-league start of the season. He gave up four hits, struck out four and walked one in his start for the Double-A Tulsa Drillers. His team went on to beat Corpus Christi 6-3.

Read more about that game here and here.

“I was just trying to go out there and get that first one going,” Pomeranz told Milb.com. “I felt pretty good, maybe a little over-pumped up for that first game.”

Pomeranz also got a base hit in the game, going 1 for 2.

The left-hander, the No. 5 overall pick in 2010, will start Sunday for the Colorado Rockies against the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was traded from Cleveland to Colorado last summer.

His manager, Jim Tracy, says the team will limit the total innings for Pomeranz this season, after he threw only 118 pro innings last summer. Read here.

There were 11 baseball players with direct ties to Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Itawamba Community College on the opening-day rosters in major league baseball.

The best-paid of those, Philadelphia Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon (Mississippi State) pitched up a save on Thursday in his new team’s first game of the season. Papelbon left Boston in the offseason as a free agent and will make $11 million this year.

In salary figures released Thursday by the Associated Press, it’s no surprise that the New York Yankees have the highest payroll – slightly more than $200 million, led by $30 million man Alex Rodriguez. Papelbon is only the sixth-highest paid player on the roster of the Phillies, who have the second-highest payroll, almost $174 million.

The salaries of the two highest-paid players, A-Rod and the Angels’ Vernon Wells ($24.6 mllion) exceed the total payroll of the lowest paid team, the Oakland Athletics ($52.8 million).

Because they have not played long in the league, eight of the players with area ties are making $500,000 or less this season. including Amory’s Mitch Moreland ($491,000), first baseman for the Texas Rangers.

Colorado pitcher Drew Pomeranz, from Ole Miss, will be added to the Rockies' roster in time for a start on April 15.

The opening-day list:

P Jonathan Papelbon (MSU) Philadelphia $11,000,058

P Paul Maholm (MSU) Chicago Cubs $4,250,000

OF Seth Smith (Ole Miss) Oakland $2,415,000

OF Chris Coghlan (Ole Miss) Miami $500,000

1B Mitch Moreland (Amory, MSU) Texas $491,100

OF Desmond Jennings (ICC) Tampa Bay $486,900

OF Alex Presley (Ole Miss) Pittsburgh $484,000

P Matt Maloney (Ole Miss) Minnesota $482,500

P Tim Dillard (Saltillo, ICC) Milwaukee $482,000

P Lance Lynn (Ole Miss) St. Louis $480,000

IF Zack Cozart (Ole Miss) Cincinnati $480,000