Matt Koch taken by Tampa Bay in 22nd round

Matt Koch was keeping tabs on the Major League Baseball first-year player draft on Tuesday, but had some last-minute things to do at school before taking off to play for the Orleans Firebirds in the Cape Cod League, so he jumped in his car and headed for Loyola Marymount.

It wasn't long after that he received a phone call from the Tampa Bay Rays, who selected the 2007 Mira Costa High graduate in the 22nd round of the 50-round draft, No. 671 overall.

''I got a call from the scout and he said, 'Congratulations,' and I said, 'On what?' He said, 'Weren't you watching? Were you stressing?' I just said, 'Oh, awesome,' '' said Koch, a third-year sophomore who led Loyola Marymount with 15 home runs and 48 RBI this season.

''It's the draft, so you never know what can happen, you don't know if you're going to get a call for sure. I had a good feeling that hopefully I would get a call and I did. I was pretty excited.''

Koch, who has the option to return to school for a junior season, does not have to make a decision whether to sign until Aug. 15. The Rays told him they would follow him through the summer on Cape Cod and discuss their future plans as that signing deadline approached.

''If the summer goes well, the offer will be where I wanted it to be and if my summer doesn't go as planned I can go back to school and continue with my junior year and try to put a better year together,'' said Koch, who earned two varsity baseball letters when at Mira Costa and left for the East Coast on Wednesday to start his summer.

The former Mustangs' catcher will be playing for Orleans for a second consecutive year, and that can only help put together a solid two months of baseball. Last summer Koch hit .191 (18 for 94) with one home run and 11 RBI in the Cape Cod League, but with players getting used to wood bats, this has never been a league to put up huge offensive numbers.

Last season, the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox led the Cape Cod League with a .261 team batting average and seven of the 10 teams hit less than .240. Orleans had 10 players with 90 or more at-bats and seven of them batted less than .225 for the summer.

On the plus side, the Orleans pitching staff led the league with a 2.69 ERA with Koch working behind the plate in 32 of their 42 games.

The second time around, Koch will start with more of a comfort level than he did a year ago.

''You have to barrel a ball,'' Koch said. ''With wood bats you can't get away with the same things you can with metal bats, the off-the-hand hits. Off-the-hand hits with wood, that bat is broken. It's a different style of pitching, because a lot of pitchers are going to go in on you.

''You learn tons. You're playing top elite pitching, top elite infielders, hitting … ''