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Tyler Bremner (Photo by Bill Mitchell)
Though it’s still too early to generate significant takeaways, starting pitchers across college baseball are beginning to establish a body of work. Most healthy Friday night arms have made three appearances, and some have already eclipsed 20 innings.
Baseball America is tracking the performances of Friday aces to keep close tabs on the nation’s top starters.
Here are 15 who stood out yesterday, plus honorable mentions. Players are listed alphabetically. You can see the top 200 draft prospects in the class here.
Kade Anderson, LHP, LSU
Through three starts, LSU’s Kade Anderson has comfortably validated coach Jay Johnson’s preseason prediction to Baseball America that the lefthander would take a big step forward as a sophomore.
On Friday, Anderson struck out 10 and allowed just two earned runs over 5.1 innings against a Kansas State team that has already toppled three top-25 teams. Though his fastball sits in the low 90s, Anderson generates impressive cut-ride on the pitch and backs it up with a curveball, slider and changeup.
Despite striking out 59 batters in 38.1 innings last year, Anderson recorded a much less impressive 29% overall miss rate. He had upped that figure to 44% entering yesterday’s start.
Final line: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R/ER, 3 BB, 10 K
Trey Beard, LHP, Florida Atlantic
Florida Atlantic sophomore Trey Beard turned in one of the best starts of the year on Friday against Fordham. The lefthander struck out 12 batters and allowed just one unearned run on two hits and three walks in six innings.
It marked his third-straight start with double-digit strikeouts and was just the second time has completed six innings. The 6-foot-2 Dunedin, Florida native has 32 strikeouts compared to eight walks in 15 innings while allowing five earned runs on just eight hits.
Armed with an over-the-top release point and curveball with plenty of depth, Beard possesses the building blocks of an intriguing draft prospect. His performance is following suit.
Final line: 6.0 IP, 2 H, 1/0 R/ER, 3 BB, 12 K
Tyler Bremner, RHP, UC Santa Barbara
Tyler Bremner’s third start of the year was as much of a relief as it was impressive. After pitching just three innings in each of his first two starts of his highly anticipated draft year, UC Santa Barbara’s ace pitched seven scoreless innings Friday against Fresno State. The righthander allowed just three…