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Huffman and Furnish selected back-to-back in MLB Draft
June 6, 2006 Fort Worth, Texas - TCU junior infielder Chad Huffman and junior pitcher Brad Furnish were the first two Frogs to be taken in the 2006 Major League Baseball Draft. Huffman was the 9th pick of the 2nd round by the San Diego Padres and the 53rd player taken overall, while Furnish was the 10th pick of the 2nd round by the St. Louis Cardinals. Huffman was the hottest hitter for the Frogs this season; helping lead them to the Mountain West regular season and tournament titles for the first time in school history. He has put together hitting streaks of 22 and 15 games. He led the team with a .388 batting average in 57 games played. He drove in a career-high 71 runs to pace the squad and connected for a career-high 18 home runs. While hitting for power, the junior has shown his patience at the plate as he has drawn team-high 38 bases on balls. Along with putting up some gaudy numbers in 2006, Huffman steadily climbed the career charts and ranked second in most offensive categories behind his brother, Royce. He ranks second all-time in hits (263), runs scored (180), total bases (439) and doubles (49). He is third all-time with 39 career home runs. As a freshman, Huffman was named freshman All-American and Conference USA Freshman of the Year. Twice he was named second-team all-C-USA and earned first-team all-Mountain West. Most recently, Louisville Slugger named him third-team All-American. Furnish transferred to TCU in the fall of 2004 after a season at Nebraska. He tossed 225 innings in his collegiate career and finished with an ERA of 4.16 in 56 appearances making 34 starts. In those 225 innings, Furnish struck out 230 batters and walked just 112. He finished with a 16-12 record to go along with four saves. This season, Furnish twirled the eighth no-hitter in TCU history as he topped Stephen F. Austin on February 19. In seven innings, Furnish fanned a career-high 13 batters. For his efforts, he was named National Pitcher of the Week as well as MWC Pitcher of the Week. He was also an all-tournament team member. He finished the season 8-6 with three saves to go along with a 4.32 ERA in 20 appearances. He made 16 starts and completed two games. He tossed 100 innings and led the team with 125 strikeouts. Opponents hit just .249 off of the lefty.
TCU is one of just three schools to have two players selected in the first 54 picks with Texas and North Carolina being the other two.
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