Team USA’s historic 2008 summer season not only resulted in a perfect 24-0 record and a team-record 0.88 ERA, but served notice that college pitching will be a dominant theme in the 2009 draft.

San Diego State’s rising junior righthander Stephen Strasburg cemented his standing as the heavy favorite to be the first pick in next year’s draft with a dominant performance with Team USA. He worked the first seven innings of the team’s 3-0 win over Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals of the World University championships on July 26 in the Czech Republic to move his overall record on the summer to 4-0, 0.88. In 43 innings, he allowed 17 hits and seven walks while striking out 62. He was the only college player named to the U.S. Olympic baseball team and has already joined his new teammates, who will leave soon for Beijing, China.

While Strasburg helped Team USA reach the gold-medal game, the team needed all the pitching it could get in a 1-0, 12-inning, gold-medal game win over Japan July 27 and three projected first-rounders closed the deal. Vanderbilt lefthander Mike Minor started the gold-medal game, Missouri righthander Kyle Gibson won it, and Baylor righthander Kendal Volz saved it. It was a fitting end to strong summer-long performances by all the Team USA pitchers.

PG Crosschecker’s weekly Summer 10 ranking of the top summer-league players (including Team USA) isn’t designed to measure potential as much as performance, but no one has performed better or been more dominant this summer than the high-profile arms on the Team USA pitching staff, and appropriately they dominate the attached list of top summer-ball performers.