CLEARWATER, Fla.–South Florida sophomore righthander Derrick Stultz hasn’t shown as much velocity as I expected to see from him today, but I love the way his arm works, and he’s pitched very well through five innings. Stultz has six strikeouts and has allowed just four hits over five shutout innings so far. He’s thrown 66 pitches and figures to go another couple of innings if he keeps cruising along. Stultz has worked in the 89-93 mph range and touched the mid-90s in the past, but tonight he’s sat at 88-90 and touched 91. He’s also gotten a number of strikeouts on his 80-82 slider, and he’s used a loopy mid-70s curve as a show pitch. The 6-foot-3, 190-pounder has tons of projection in his lithe, athletic frame, and his arm action is very easy. I like him the best of South Florida’s sophomores, but I still like freshman shortstop Sam Mende the most of any of USF’s prospects.

Here in the press box, poor Charlie Terenzio just survived another scare (see here for details of the first incident), as USF sophomore Ryan Lockwood fouled a ball right over his open window in the press box. It’s 56 degrees outside now, and I’m starting to wonder when Charlie will decide to stop putting his life on the line and close the press box window. A couple pitches later, Lockwood extended his hitting streak to 32 games with a hard single through the right side of the infield.

The Bulls lead 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth and have the bases loaded with two outs. If Stultz leaves with the lead, it will be interesting to see if the USF bullpen can nail down the win today after blowing a three-run lead for Randy Fontanez yesterday.