College Corner: Friday Night Starters

My favorite night of the week in college baseball is Friday. That's when the #1 starters almost always pitch and it produces some memorable performances. I remember when Tim Lincecum, Brandon Morrow, David Huff, Ian Kennedy and Greg Reynolds were all Pac 10 Juniors in the same season. Oh man, were there some great pitching duels that year!

College baseball opened last night. As always, I eagerly scanned the boxscores for great pitching performances. For a complete rundown of Friday Night Starters from last night, I recommend Andy Seiler's draft oriented blog www.mlbbonusbaby.com.

Deck McGuire of Georgia Tech was easily the star of the night with a 7 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 10 K performance. McGuire is Baseball America's #3 preseason college draft prospect in the country.

The pitching duel of the night was turned in by Jake Thompson of Long Beach State winning 2-1 over Pepperdine and Cole Cook:

Thompson- 9 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 6 K's. #67 BA college draft prospect. His stock seems to be rising, but does not have impressive K rates for a college pitcher.

Cook- 7 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 7 K's. #39 BA college draft prospect.

One thing I like to do is scour the boxscores for players who might not necessarily be first round draft choices but might make good picks later in the draft. Since the Giants seem to specialize in "sleeper" pitchers drafted late, I try to guess which ones might be a fit. I think I might have found one in Villanova Senior RHP Brian Streilein. I noticed his pitching line from last night: 6.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 12 K's! and looked up his bio. He's a big fellow, 6'3" 222lbs. He's been inconsistent, but with good K rates up to this year. He is described as a power pitcher. The Giants love to draft big pitchers from lower profile programs and always seem to take a few players from the Northeast in the later rounds and they don't mind taking Seniors. Hmm.....seems like a perfect fit to me! I will be following Streilein as the season goes along.

I'll look at some hitters after the weekend to give a better sample size.