There's a lot of down time in dugouts during baseball games.
During a lull in Saturday's Wood River American Legion baseball game against the Pocatello Rebels, several Wood River players gazed out to the scoreboard behind the fence in right center field and wondered if anyone had ever hit the scoreboard with a batted ball.
Coach Matt Nelson said Carey's lefty slugger T.J. Peterson had hit the scoreboard. Legion senior shortstop Michale Brunker remembered that Ryne Reynoso, another southpaw belter, had hit a round tripper over the scoreboard, more than a 400-foot blow.
Reynoso was quite a slugger for Wood River, batting .424 with 11 HR and 77 RBI in 47 games for the local Legion ball club during the program's best-ever season, 40-20 in 2002.
Before going to Boston College, he was also quite a righthanded pitcher, going 16-7 for the Legion in 2001-02 and a school-record 23-5 for the Wood River High School team from 2001-03 including 11-2 during its 2003 state championship year.
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There was no question Reynoso could compete. He is now the ace of the staff of the Mississippi Braves of the Class AA Southern League in Pearl, Miss. outside Jackson. The big question: Is Triple A next?
Reynoso, 24, had his best outings of the season last week pitching in 90-degree heat for the Braves (4-2 in the second half after a last-place 31-39 record in the season's first half).
On June 23 on his home Trustmark Park field, he took the hill opposite the Southern League's leader in wins, Lucas Harrell of the Birmingham Barons. And Reynoso threw his best game of the year with eight scoreless innings in Mississippi's 6-1 triumph over the first-half division winners from Birmingham (48-21 first half).
Reynoso (5-4 season, 3.31 ERA in 84 innings, 55 K, 37 BB) in his 13th start allowed only three hits while walking three and whiffing three in an efficient 95-pitch outing.
Sunday night, Reynoso (7.2 innings, 1 earned run, 6 hits, 6 K, 2 BB) benefited from a five-run eighth on his home field as the Braves rallied past the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx 6-3. He threw 109 pitches. In his last 15-plus innings, he has now allowed only 1 earned run and nine hits, with nine strikeouts.
For his efforts Reynoso was named Southern League "Player of the Week."
Ryne Reynoso
