Former Mountaineer baseball players Tobias Streich and Vince Belnome are both off the red-hot starts in professional baseball this summer after being selected in the baseball entry draft last month.
Streich, a 5th round selection by the Minnesota Twins, is 8-26 in the early going. He has hit in all six games he has played in with the Elizabethtown Twins in the rookie Appalachian League. Streich has suprised with his power numbers as he has three homeruns and three doubles so far.
Belnome–drafted by the Podres organization–is hitting .319 in 14 games with the Eugene Emeralds of the Class-A short season Northwest League. Belnome, who set a single season school record with 84 RBI at WVU this year, has driven in 15 runs and eight of his 15 hits are for extra bases.
Last year, WVU’s all time hits leader was drafted by the White Sox organization. Tyler Kuhn was recently promoted to Winston-Salem in the Class-A Advanced Carolina League. Kuhn is hitting .432 in his first 13 games at that level.
Also, former Mountaineer David Carpenter of Fairmont was drafted by the Cardinals as a catcher. He was moved to pitcher prior to the start of this season. Carpenter has responded with four wins and five saves with the Quad City River Bandits in the Class-A Midwest League. Carpenter has 42 strikeouts in his first 40 innings this season.
An update on current Mountaineer Jedd Gyorko who is playing in the wood bat Cape Cod league this summer: Gyorko, who missed the first two weeks of the summer league season while he tried out for Team-USA, hit .455 in his first week of play. He had two homeruns and seven RBI in his first week.