Most college aces—such as the righthanders at the top of the BA Top 200 draft prospects list, Stanford's Mark Appel, LSU's Kevin Gausman and San Francisco's Kyle Ziimmer—pitch on Friday nights. To study the hitters in the college class, we decided to take a look at how the college hitters from the Top 200 did during the opening game of a weekend series.

The assumption made in this study is college coaches use their best pitcher on Fridays. Now that’s not always the case, and there are many differences between competition levels and playing environments that factor into the equation, especially with such a small sample size.

Still, it’s interesting to examine and a few of the numbers really stand out. Clemson third baseman Richie Shaffer walked 21 times in the opening game of a weekend series, while Stanford third baseman/outfielder Stephen Piscotty didn’t draw a single walk in those games.

Of Florida catcher Mike Zunino’s 19 hits in the opening game of a weekend series, 61 percent of them went for extra bases. His .310/.354/.603 line on Friday nights looks better than his .255/.336/.509 line in Southeastern Conference play this season.
The following chart was compiled with the help of Baseball America intern John Sandberg. One Saturday game was included in Richie Shaffer’s statistics to include a start against North Carolina State freshman Carlos Rodon, and an extra game was included in Zunino’s line to include a start against Kevin Gausman, since the spirit of the study is to look at how hitters do against the best pitchers.