By Nathan Rode
National Supervisor

USA Baseball’s Tournament of Stars concluded Sunday afternoon with USA Pride winning the championship and 44 players being announced to the trials roster, plus nine alternates. The trials will take place in Houston in late August where the roster will be trimmed down to 20 players in advance of the COPABE Pan American Championship in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in early September. The 18U National Team Trials roster and alternates can be found on USA Baseball’s site. We will have more on the event and players named to the trials roster this week. For now, here are some thoughts from the tournament’s last day…

+ The fifth-place game between USA United and USA Stripes got ugly quickly. United took a 7-0 lead early as RHP Beau Burrows (Weatherford HS, TX) had trouble finding the strike zone. He allowed seven runs on three hits and six walks while striking out one in 1 1/3 innings. Despite the lack of command, Burrows’ stuff was still electric. I’ve been covering the Tournament of Stars since 2008 and pitchers’ second appearances typically see a drop in velocity with them coming back on just a couple days of rest. Burrows, a Texas A&M recruit, was still sitting 92-94 mph with his fastball and in the low 80s with his slider. United won the game 18-4.