College Baseball Daily continues our countdown to the start of the 2011 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.
Coming in at number 19 on the list is Arizona State junior LHP Mitchell Lambson. The Tualatin, Oregon native attended Tualatin High School where he was a four year letter winner in baseball. As a senior, he went 8-1 with a 1.40 ERA and 92 strikeouts on his way to setting school records for career strikeouts and career pitching victories.
Lambson had an outstanding freshman season in 2009 which saw him work out of the bullpen in his 31 out of 32 appearances. He finished the season with a 9-5 record including five saves while accumulating a 3.01 ERA in 83.2 innings pitched. He had an outstanding strikeout to walk ratio with 99 strikeouts and walking only 25 batters. He picked up several awards including being named First Team All-Pac 10 in addition to being a Freshman All-American by Collegiate Baseball and the NCBWA.
Mitchell had no sophomore slump in 2010 as he was even better. He continued to work out of the bullpen making all 39 appearances out of it while going 8-2 including three saves and an ERA of 2.16. He ended up striking out 96 batters while walking only 20. Opponents struggled against him as they only hit .160 as he served as the setup man for the Sun Devils as he accumulated 13 holds.
He spent the summer of 2010 in the Cape Cod Baseball League playing for the Orleans Firebirds. He ended up appearing in 12 games out of the bullpen while going 1-1 with a 0.96 ERA in 18.2 innings pitched. He continued his excellent control striking out 21 batters while walking only 3 in the summer season.
Top 100 College Baseball Players
