The CBB continues our countdown to the 2009 College Baseball season with our Top 50 players to watch. We will be providing one player each day (Monday-Saturday) until we reach number 1.
We continue our list with Kyle Blair of San Diego, a sophomore from Monte Sereno, California (Los Gatos HS).In his junior year of high school, Blair had an outstanding record of 13-1 with an ERA of 0.16 allowing only two earned runs in 89.2 innings of work. This type of performance was good enough to be selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fifth round, but he turned down the money by honoring his commitment to the San Diego program.
Kyle Blair stepped right into the best rotation in the country, grabbing the number 3 spot behind first round pick Brian Matusz and fourth round pick Josh Romanski. He made 16 appearances out of the pen with 12 starts. His final record was 8-4 with a 3.86 ERA in 74.2 innings of work, with an eye-popping K/9 of 11.97.
He spent the summer with the Chatham A’s of the Cape Cod Baseball League. He only made four appearances on the year with three starts. He had a 1-1 record with a 4.22 ERA in only 10 innings of work. He continued his strong strikeout rate by striking out 14 batters in those innings.
Blair will be expected to step into the Toreros rotation in 2009 with Sammy Solis and Matt Thomson filling in the other spots. We think Blair will continue to develop into one of the top pitchers in the country in 2009.
You can check out the full top 50 by clicking here.
