Two Atlantic 10 baseball players were taken on the second day of the Major League Baseball Draft. Fordham's Matt Mikulski and Bradford Webb of VCU were each selected Monday.
Mikulski (Mohegan Lake, N.Y.) was selected in the second round (50
th overall) by the San Francisco Giants. The Texas Rangers selected
Webb (Charlotte Court House, Va.) with the 194th overall pick in the seventh round of the 2021 MLB Draft Monday afternoon.
After becoming a unanimous All-American selection and having one of the best single seasons in program history, Mikulski is the second highest draft pick for the Fordham baseball program behind only Pete Harnisch, who was selected 27
th overall in 1987 by Baltimore. It is the sixth time over the past seven years that the Rams had a player taken in the MLB draft.
Mikulski was Fordham's first unanimous All-American since Chase Edmonds did so for football in 2016. Mikulski was selected First Team All-America by the NCBWA and ABCA/Rawlings, Second Team by
Collegiate Baseball and
D1Baseball.com, and Third Team by
Baseball America.
The 2021 Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Year and Golden Spikes Award semifinalist, Mikulski completed one of the finest single seasons in Fordham baseball history in 2021.
The 2021 Vincent T. Lombardi Award winner as the top male athlete at Fordham, finished the year with a perfect 9-0 record to go with a 1.45 ERA and 124 strikeouts in 68.1 innings pitched. He led the Atlantic 10 in ERA, hits allowed/9 innings, strikeouts, strikeouts/9 innings, wins (T-1st), complete games (T-1st), and WHIP in the regular season, while nationally, he was the NCAA leader in both hits allowed/9 innings and strikeouts/9 innings and among the top 20 in ERA, total strikeouts, and WHIP.
A four-time Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Week and two-time National Player of the Week honoree, Mikulski held opponents to a .127 batting average overall, while lefties hit to an .073 average (4-for-55). He set single season record for strikeouts at Fordham, breaking Hank Borowy's 1939 mark of 115, while also becoming the all-time strikeout king at Fordham with 272, surpassing Javier Martinez's 264 from 2004-07.
Additionally, his 1.45 ERA is the fifth-best single season mark at Fordham with his 3.17 career ERA, raking in a tie for 15th all-time. Mikulski also became the 11th Ram to reach 20 career wins (tied for fifth all-time with 21), while his nine wins in a single season is tied for eighth.
Webb is the 52nd player to be drafted out of VCU in the school's history, and the Rams' highest draft pick since Scott Sizemore went to the Detroit Tigers in the fifth round in 2006.
Webb joined the Rams for the 2021 season as a graduate transfer after three years at Division III Hampden-Sydney College. The right-hander made 17 appearances for VCU this spring, including 14 starts, leading the team with 57 strikeouts and a 3.16 ERA.
In the winner's bracket game of the 2021 Atlantic 10 Championship at The Diamond, Webb started the contest with eight strikeouts across five crucial scoreless innings, paving the way for a 10-4 win over Rhode Island. The performance helped guide VCU to the A-10 title and earned Webb a selection on the A-10 All-Championship Team.
Webb also started VCU's opening game of the NCAA Regional in Starkville, Miss., striking out five batters in 4.2 innings in a 19-4 win over Campbell.
The Rams finished the year at 38-16, the program's seventh consecutive full season of 34 or more wins, in addition to the A-10 regular season and tournament titles.