Happy Friday, everyone. We’ll start off today with a bit of baseball talk. The MLB Draft starts tomorrow, and SS Justin Lebron looks to become Alabama’s first top 15 selection in 35 years. Keith Law has Justin mocked to the Arizona Diamondbacks with the 15th pick, while ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel thinks the Angels will snag him at 12.
Lebron’s predecessor is in the majors, and he had a whale of a game yesterday.
Jarvis went 3-for-5 with a two-run homer and a double in Thursday’s 10-5 win over the Pirates
Jarvis extended Atlanta’s lead to 5-2 in the fourth inning with his two-run, 397-foot blast off Cam Sanders, the first homer of his big-league career. Jarvis has seen regular playing time at shortstop since he was recalled from Triple-A in early July. He’s gone 6-for-19 across five games after slashing .313/.406/.461 with six homers across 348 plate appearances in the minors this year.
Jarvis didn’t just get it done at the plate, either.
The question on Jim has been whether he could be a serviceable hitter at the big league level. His glove and athleticism are elite, and he has earned himself a chance to prove that he can stick in the lineup.
Moving on to football, Katie Windham notes that year three has been good to Alabama head coaches.
Dating back to Billy Curry in 1989, every Crimson Tide head coach has reached double-digit wins during his third season. Sometimes those seasons with at least 10 wins led to national championships that season or the next, and sometimes it created expectations that the coach could not live up to the following year.
Winning at least 10 games this year is a minimum expectation for DeBoer in 2026. How far past that can he get? Will he be like Saban and Gene Stallings and win a national title in Year 3? Will he be like Ray Perkins or Mike DuBose with a strong third season that just creates even higher expectations for Year 4?
Ten wins doesn’t mean what it did for most of those, but may the trend continue.
Dre Kirkpatrick is the latest in the “50 players” series.
Kirkpatrick remained suspended for the rest of the season but has since rejoined the team. The exact legal resolution is unknown, but his case and charges are no longer listed in the online court system.
Kirkpatrick was back practicing with Alabama this spring and now moves toward his junior season where he will be part of one of, if not the best, secondaries in the country.
“Yeah, he had consequences for what he did and the things he’s gone through,” Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer said after Alabama’s second spring practice. “There’s still pieces to that that he’s taking care of when it comes to those consequences with the team.
“He met those requirements and has a great attitude about him. He loves ball. He’s got to build the trust up with his teammates out there every day. He’ll do the things not just on the field, but off it as well to meet the standard our program expects.”
Dre probably won’t have a huge role on this year’s team, but it’s good to see him getting his life together.
Reclassified point guard Anderson Diaz and family spoke about why he chose Alabama.
“I think the thing that stood out the most was the consistency from day one,” Diaz’s father said. “There were times where I would get a phone call that (Alabama) was at Overtime Elite just to check on him. I thought that was really cool. Every time they rolled through Atlanta and had time, they would go see him for a practice. They stood really consistent with him from the beginning. They made him a priority.”
Diaz’s father shared a story during the recruitment when Diaz went through a little bit of a slump while competing out in Memphis (TN) during the contact period. (Nate) Oats and assistant Preston Murphy gave him a call after one of the games.
“It wasn’t like ‘he did this and he did that’,” he explained. “It was more of ‘we can fix that, he just needs to do this and do that’ and that fits him to me.”
Last, ‘Baron looks like he belongs in the NBA.
That’s about it for today. Have a great weekend.
Roll Tide.
