Thomas strikes out 15 to lead Oak Ridge baseball team past Chaffee

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Numbers probably are the best way to explain how good Oak Ridge starter Brett Thomas was against Chaffee on Wednesday night.

The basics: Thomas threw his fourth complete game and third shutout of the season in his team's 4-0 win over the Red Devils. The game, which was a makeup, was played at Chaffee, but Oak Ridge was the home team on the scoreboard.

Thomas faced 24 batters in his seven innings of work. He allowed hits to two of them, struck out 15, walked one and retired the rest with the help of his defense, which played flawlessly behind him.

He did all of that while throwing just 82 pitches, meaning he threw an average of just 3.42 pitches to each batter he faced. And again, he struck out 15 of them.

"The Oak Ridge kid is as good as advertised," Chaffee coach Brian Horrell said. "He's going to Mizzou, and the kid was phenomenal today."

Thomas signed his national letter of intent to pitch for Missouri in November.

"We just haven't seen that type of velocity," Horrell said. "That's probably the highest velocity from a pitcher we've seen, and then he also had a nice breaking ball that he started mixing in. We had a couple chances very early in the game, and we couldn't cash in. After that I thought he got stronger as the game went along.

"When you get a chance against a kid like that you've got to try to cash in. I thought after about the second inning we didn't have any scoring opportunities, so he settled in nicely."

Chaffee put two runners on in the first inning when Jared Walker's one-out walk was followed by a hit from Trevor Cannon. Thomas then struck out back-to-back batters to end the inning and begin a streak of 16 consecutive outs.

"He struggled a little early with the zone," Oak Ridge coach Patrick Friga said. "He thought some pitches up were strikes, and once he found out the strike zone was a little lower, he buckled down and got in the groove."

Thomas, who was pitching on five days rest after a 16-day layoff between his previous two starts thanks to rainouts, said his pitches were improved Wednesday.

"From the third inning on it was," he said. "The first two innings I struggled big time. I had no breaking ball and my fastball was everywhere, but I got through the first two innings and after that everything sharpened up a little bit.

"I think it was just a matter of finding it. I don't know if it's my arm finally loosened up or I made an adjustment mechanically, but something clicked and everything was down and sharper."

Oak Ridge scored a run in the first inning after freshman Kelby Brown led off the game with a single off Chaffee freshman starter Cody Payne. Brown later scored on a wild pitch.

The Blue Jays added a run in the third on Thomas' RBI double and then two more in the fourth -- one on a sacrifice fly by Brown and another on a wild pitch. The inning included two successful bunts by the Nos. 6 and 7 batters in the Oak Ridge (12-5) lineup.

Thomas is 6-0 with a 0.53 ERA. He's struck out 85 batters in 39 1/3 innings while allowing 17 hits and seven walks.

"I just want to keep rolling," Thomas said. "I've been pretty successful so far pitching. I just want to keep it going and keep the arm at 100 percent and keep everything sharp and get the mechanics down and get ready for district play coming up."

Chaffee finished the regular season 17-6 after also losing to Notre Dame ace Cody Heisserer earlier Wednesday.

"I thought we had some good at-bats in both games and had a chance to battle, and that's what you want to see, some good pitching before districts," Horrell said. "We've just got to hope our kids won't let this get them down and come out and have two good days of practice before we start districts on Saturday. If we can rebound mentally, I think it was a good thing for us. We saw some of the best pitching that we're probably going to see right there."

Chaffee 000 000 0 -- 0 2 1

Oak Ridge 101 200 X -- 4 5 0

WP -- Brett Thomas, 6-0. LP -- Cody Payne. 2B -- Jared Walker (C), Thomas (O). Records -- Chaffee 17-6, Oak Ridge 12-5.