Episcope To The Brewers

As a follow-up to yesterday's chat about Wimbledon, TigerBlog wants to make one more point about tennis. 

If you're the 10th-20th best player in the world in pretty much any other sport, then you have quite likely been an indispensable part of a championship — or several. In tennis? You have almost no chance of ever reaching past, say, the quarterfinals of a major tournament. If you're lucky and things break your way, maybe you get a little further. 

The current 15th-ranked men's player in the world is Arthur Fils. He has never made it past the fourth round of a major. The current 15th-ranked women's player in the world is Diana Schnaider. She, too, has never made it past the fourth round at a major.

The NFL Network annually polls the league's players and then comes out with its top 100 each year. This year's countdown has just started, but would you like to guess who was the No. 15 player in last year's top 100? 

That would be Jalen Hurts, who when last seen was winning the MVP award at the most recent Super Bowl as quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. 

Want to try another individual sport? How about men's golf? Who's the current World No. 15? That would be Bryson DeChambeau, a two-time U.S. Open champion and a two-time PGA Championship runner-up. 

What does this all mean? Nothing. It's just interesting. 

As another follow-up to yesterday, TigerBlog mentioned that women's runner-up Amanda Aminosova was born in Freehold and had a sister Maria who played at Penn. TB's Office of Athletic Communications colleague Chas Dorman pointed out that Maria Aminosova was a former student worker of his when he worked at Penn. 

She also is married to former Penn basketball player Kevin Egee.  

Shifting from tennis to baseball, the Major League draft is ongoing. If you paid attention to the first round, you saw that 12 of the first 26 picks were high school infielders, including 10 shortstops. 

Of the remaining 14 of those picks, there were six college pitchers who went. Of that group, there were two that TB followed closely in the recent Men's College World Series — Kade Anderson of the champion LSU Tigers, who went No. 3 to the Mariners, and Gage Wood of Arkansas, who went No. 26 to the Phillies. 

Wood, you may recall, was the pitcher who threw a no-hitter against Murray State in the MCWS, losing a perfect game when he hit a batter in the eighth inning. TB watched that entire game and is of the belief that Wood still would not have allowed a hit if the game continued to today. 

Speaking of college pitchers who were drafted, Princeton's Sean Episcope was chosen in the fifth round by the Milwaukee Brewers. The 6-0, 210-pounder Chicago native was the 155th overall selection. 

Episcope was a two-time Ivy Pitcher of the Week this past season. In his two seasons as a Tiger, he has struck out 70 batters in 66 innings, and he allowed just seven hits in 20 innings this season, with 26 strikeouts. 

He allowed only two runs on three hits with no walks and six strikeouts in five innings against Miami and one run each in five-inning starts against both Wake Forest and Liberty, with a combined 14 strikeouts and two walks in those two outings. 

Episcope becomes the 54th Princeton baseball player to be chosen in the Major League draft and the highest chosen Princeton player since Ross Ohlendorf went in the fourth round in 2004. Ohlendorf went on to pitch for 10 seasons in the Majors.

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes any of the players drafted this week to make the Majors. that's especially true of pitchers, where you're torn between rushing them and having them throw too many innings and pitches in the minors.  

Staying healthy is a big part of it. Episcope has battled injuries, but hopefully he can get (and stay) healthy and reach his fullest potential. 

The Brewers certainly think he will. 

Congratulations to Sean Episcope. That's quite an accomplishment.