The Houston Astros selected California high-school pitcher Brady Aiken with the No. 1 pick in the Major League Baseball draft on Thursday.
The polished left-hander from San Diego’s Cathedral Catholic High School is the first high-school lefty to be drafted in the first five picks since Adam Loewen went fourth overall to Baltimore in 2002.
“It’s the most advanced high-school pitcher I’ve ever seen in my entire career,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said. “He has command like I’ve never seen before of his stuff.”
Aiken’s draft stock rose late last year when he struck out 10 in a gold medal-winning performance against Japan in the 18-and-under World Cup in Greater Taichung last year.
“We actually did find out on TV. We were kind of going back and forth,” Aiken said in an interview on MLB Network. “It was a crazy moment... This whole thing, it’s crazy.”
The Astros are the first team to select first in three consecutive drafts, having picked shortstop Carlos Correa in 2012 and right-hander Mark Appel last year.
“I’m just ready to move forward and see what the Astros have in store for me in the future,” Aiken said. “I’m just really excited.”
With the second pick, Miami took hard-throwing Texas high-school pitcher Tyler Kolek. The 1.98m, 104kg player from Shepherd High School has a fastball that sits in the high-90s and touched 100-102 miles per hour (161-164kph) several times, causing many to compare him to some fellow Texas flamethrowers such as Nolan Ryan, Kerry Wood and Josh Beckett.
The Chicago White Sox selected North Carolina State left-hander Carlos Rodon with the third overall pick. The junior was widely regarded as the top college pitcher available in the draft and had been in the mix to go No. 1 overall.
Indiana catcher Kyle Schwarber went No. 4 overall to the Chicago Cubs as the first position player selected. The Hoosiers star is a finalist for the Johnny Bench Award as the best catcher in Division I, although he could move to third base or the outfield in the pros.
Nick Gordon, the son of former big leaguer Tom Gordon and brother of the Dodgers’ Dee Gordon, went fifth overall to Minnesota. The Florida high-school shortstop was the first of the seven prospects in attendance at the draft site at MLB Network Studio to have his name called by Commissioner Bud Selig.
California high-school catcher Alex Jackson went sixth to Seattle. LSU righty Aaron Nola was the seventh overall selection by Philadelphia. University of Evansville lefty Kyle Freeland, a Colorado native, went No. 8 to the Rockies.
East Carolina right-hander Jeff Hoffman, who missed most of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, was the ninth pick by Toronto. The New York Mets rounded out the top 10 picks by selecting Oregon State outfielder Michael Conforto, a two-time Pac-12 player of the year and a finalist for the Golden Spikes award.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier