COLLEGE WORLD SERIES : Draft Leaves Silva With Plenty of Incentive : Baseball: Ignored by major league teams, pitcher will try to make them take notice when the Titans face Stanford.

Cal State Fullerton junior pitcher Ted Silva has 16 victories, more than any other pitcher coming into the College World Series.

But already, before his first Series pitch, he has been somewhat overshadowed by the fact that three other pitchers were chosen Thursday in the first round of the amateur draft. Florida State has two of them, Jonathan Johnson and David Yocum, and Oklahoma has the third, Mark Redman.

Major League Baseball announces only the first round of the draft, but Titan associate head coach George Horton said Silva apparently wasn’t chosen through the first 18 rounds.

If Silva needed extra incentive going into today’s first game, the snub by baseball scouts should provide it.

Silva (16-1, 2.67 earned-run average) is scheduled to start when top-ranked Fullerton (53-9) puts its 14-game winning streak on the line against Stanford (39-23) at 11:40 a.m. (PDT). The game is scheduled to be nationally televised by CBS.

“I’m really surprised,” Horton said. “We thought he would be drafted at least by the seventh or eighth rounds, but based on the information we’ve gotten from our sources, he hasn’t been picked yet. The word out there is that the scouts thought he might want too much money to sign. If they feel that’s the case, then they might hold back on drafting him.”

Horton said Silva also was surprised.

“He’s hurt and frustrated by it right now, but he’ll have another day to get over it before he pitches. But if I know Ted, he’ll go out in this tournament and put it back in somebody’s face. That’s usually the way he deals with those kinds of things.”

Silva brushed off any talk about the draft Friday. “I’ll know more about that later,” he said.

Silva said he is concentrating on the Titans’ opening game. “I’m looking forward to pitching, and trying to help us win a national championship,” he said.

Silva has faced Stanford before. He picked up his second victory of the season in February on the way to his school-record total total against the Cardinal. Fullerton’s 5-3 victory in that game gave the Titans a 2-1 advantage in the series. Fullerton won the first game, 11-9, and lost the second, 11-10.

Stanford Coach Mark Marquess believes his team is considerably stronger now.

“We’re looking forward to playing Augie again,” Marquess said. “We’re playing our best baseball of the season right now.”

The Cardinal has won 17 of its last 22 games, along with the Midwest I Regional at Wichita. Stanford was seeded third behind Texas Tech and the host team.

Stanford has overcome the loss of two of its top pitchers, Dan Reed and Jason Middlebrook. Both developed arm problems during the regular season. Middlebrook, who got off to a 1-5 start, has been sidelined since March 26. Reed only recently returned after missing the second half of the season.

Two other pitchers came to the rescue. Freshman right-hander Kyle Peterson led the way with a 13-1 record, and junior left-hander Mike Robbins moved from the bullpen into the No. 2 starting spot. Robbins (6-3, 3.38 ERA) is the scheduled starter against the Titans.

“The key to our team is pitching and defense,” Marquess said. “On offense, we score a lot of runs sometimes, but sometimes we don’t. But the pitching has been consistent. We had four complete games pitched in the regional. We also swept a three-game series from Arizona State late in the season, and I’ve never had a team do that.”

Third baseman Steve Carver led the Cardinal hitting in the regional with a .385 average along with four home runs and 11 runs batted in.

Stanford’s leading hitter for the season is junior catcher A.J. Hinch, who is hitting .371 with eight home runs and 56 RBIs. Hinch is a consensus first-team All-American choice at the position.

The game will provide an interesting matchup between Hinch and the Titans’ highly regarded sophomore catcher Brian Loyd, who is hitting .357 with eight home runs and 67 RBIs.

Titan Coach Augie Garrido is hopeful his team will be back in high gear after faltering slightly, in his opinion, in the regional.

Fullerton star Mark Kotsay was below his hot hitting pace this season in the NCAA South Regional, batting .294 in the four games. Kotsay is hitting .413 for the season with 18 home runs and 80 RBIs.