College Baseball Daily continues our countdown to the start of the 2012 College Baseball season by checking in on the Top 100 Players in the country. We will be providing one player per day until we reach number 1.
We continue the countdown today at number 56 with Bradley senior LHP Joe Bircher. The Omaha, Nebraska native attended Roncalli Catholic High School where he played four years of baseball under Tom Kupfer. As a junior and senior, Bircher was named second-team all-state.
His freshman season saw him appear in 14 games with six starts going 4-2 with a 3.39 ERA. He struck out 50 batters while walking 17.
Bircher struggled as a sophomore going 4-5 with a 5.67 ERA in 81 innings pitched while starting 14 games. He struck out 68 batters while walking 24 batters.
He returned to his freshman form as a junior going 6-6 with a 3.00 ERA in 15 starts. He pitched a total of 105 innings striking out 71 batters while walking 33. He was able to holding opponents to a .229 batting average against.
He pitched the summer of 2011 in the Cape Cod Baseball League with the Falmouth Commodores going 2-2 with an ERA of 1.68 in a total of 48.1 innings pitched. He struck out 54 batters while walking 11 for the season.
You can check out the rest of our Top 100 by clicking here.
