The second weekend of the college baseball season got off to an early start this week, thanks to several prominent national tournaments taking place.
The Houston Cougar Classic is going to draw the most overall national attention thanks to Houston hosting #2 Texas A&M, #5 Baylor, #8 UC Irvine, #17 Rice and #23 UCLA at Minute Maid Park, which in itself will create some intriguing matchups.
However, no individual matchup looked as good on paper as the one that pitted a pair of potential first-round picks against one another on Thursday night as part of the DeMartini Invitational: Missouri's Kyle Gibson vs. Arizona State's Mike Leake.
Since it is early in the season, you never know how long any pitcher will last, no matter how well that pitcher may throw. This game ended 2-1 in favor of the Sun Devils, with both pitchers living up to the lofty expectations.
Gibson gave up a pair of manufactured runs, one each in the first two innings. He wasn't hit hard throughout the entire game, and cruised after the second inning, tossing seven innings of work overall, giving up five hit and no walks while striking out eight batters. The tall, lanky righty entered the season with a very good chance of being one of the top 10 players overall taken in June's upcoming draft, and so far he has lived up to the billing.
All Leake did was enter the eighth inning without giving up a hit. He left the game after the eighth inning giving up only one all game, a double by Andrew Thigpen, and a walk, while striking out 10 Mizzou batters.
On the season, Leake has now struck out 17 batters and allowed only three hits and three walks in 14 innings of work.
As part of the University of San Diego tournament, Stephen Strasburg made sure that he was not to be out-done.
While this tournament overall won't have the same amount of talent as it did a year ago, Strasburg's effort will make sure people look past the overall pro talent level after he struck out 16 Nevada Wolfpack batters in 6.2 innings of work on Thursday night.
He struck out the side in the first, third, fifth and sixth, and of his 16 punchouts, 12 went down swinging.
The damage against him came with two outs in the seventh, as a walk, double and a single ended his evening haven given up a pair of earned runs. Overall he allowed five hits and a walk, and over his first two starts he has posted an astonishing 27 to three strikeout to walk ratio over 12 innings of work.
Given the results to go along with the near triple-digit radar readigs that have been reported out of San Diego, it's safe to say that Strasburg continues to be the favorite to be the first player selected in this year's draft.
While the Georgia at Arizona and Miami at Florida weekend series will draw more interest, one of my favorite annual events is the Dairy Queen Classic, hosted by the Minnesota Golden Gophers at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.
Hawai'i, UC Santa Barbara and Washington make the long trip to Minneapolis from the West Coast this weekend, with the Gauchos weekend starting staff drawing the most interest.
Right-hander Joe Gardner, coming off of a very impressive season debut in which he struck out 13 batters in seven innings of work, will look to shut down the Gophers' lineup on Friday night, led by a pair of left-handed hitters in second baseman Derek McCallum and outfielder Eric Decker. Decker was on pace to be named an All-American wide receiver in college football last fall before being shut down due to injury, and McCallum was one of the top prospects in the Northwoods League last summer.
As for the rest of the Gauchos weekend staff, LHP Mario Hollands is scheduled to throw Saturday with RHP Mike Ford set to take the mound on Sunday. This promising trio has significant pro potential, and makes UC Santa Barbara the favorite on paper to take the weekend tournament.