Northwestern University Athletics
Dan Padgett Drafted by San Francisco Giants
6/12/2000 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
June 5, 2000
EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern senior Dan Padgett (Littleton, Colo./Arapahoe) was picked by the San Francisco Giants in the 19th round of the Major League Baseball draft. The draft began today and will continue through the next two days.
The senior left-handed pitcher was the 571st player taken overall, and it marked the sixth-straight year a Wildcat hurler was drafted. Padgett also became the 32nd Wildcat to be drafted in the 13-year tenure of head coach Paul Stevens, and continued a streak that has seen at least one player picked in every one of Stevens' years as a head coach.
This year, Padgett made the transition from relief pitcher to starter and was magnificent. The senior went 5-1 in the Big Ten with a 2.86 earned-run average, which placed him seventh in the conference. Overall, Padgett was 6-2 with a 3.45 ERA, which was sixth among all Big Ten pitchers. Padgett was also among the league leaders in strikeouts, with 66 overall (8th) and 37 in Big Ten (5th). His final outing in a Wildcat uniform was certainly memorable, as he held the top-hitting team in the nation, Penn State, to just five hits and two runs in seven innings as the Wildcats downed the Nittany Lions en route to clinching a Big Ten Tournament berth.
Overall, the pitching of Padgett and sophomores Zach Schara and Gabe Ribas led Northwestern to one of its finest seasons in recent memory. The Wildcats went 30-27 overall and finished sixth in the Big Ten at 13-15, qualifying them for the Big Ten Tournament for the first time since 1995.
Padgett will report to San Francisco's Single A minor-league affiliate in Salem, Ore.
