Jackson Ferris kept stacking strikeouts while Oklahoma City kept searching for a way through. By the time the Comets’ offense broke loose, the left-hander had made the thin early margin feel much larger than it was.
Ferris struck out 13 over 7⅔ scoreless innings, allowed one hit and walked one in a 12-0 victory over the El Paso Chihuahuas on Wednesday at Southwest University Park. Oklahoma City scored six runs in the seventh inning and five more in the eighth, turning a pitching duel into a rout before El Paso could find an answer for Ferris.
For four innings, the Comets’ best opportunities disappeared almost as quickly as they developed. Alek Thomas reached in the first, but Oklahoma City came away empty. Chadwick Tromp singled and Zach Ehrhard walked in the third before Thomas lined into a double play.
The sharper blow came an inning later. Ryan Ward and Matt Gorski opened the fourth with singles, putting two aboard with nobody out. Hyeseong Kim lined to first baseman Marcos Castañon, who started a triple play that also erased Ward at second and Gorski at first.
Ferris made the missed chances irrelevant. He retired El Paso in order in each of the first six innings, striking out at least one batter in all six. The Chihuahuas did not put a runner on base during that stretch, and only a handful of balls left the infield.
Oklahoma City finally gave him a lead in the fifth. Ryan Fitzgerald lined a leadoff double to right, advanced no farther on Noah Miller’s strikeout and then scored when Tromp lifted a sacrifice fly to left. That single run was all Ferris needed.
The Comets eventually supplied considerably more.
Gorski began the seventh with a double off Jason Adam. Kim followed with a ground-ball single to center that scored Gorski, and Fitzgerald immediately lined his second double of the game to right to bring Kim home. Miller added an RBI single before Tromp walked, ending Adam’s outing without an out recorded.
The rally continued against Hans Crouse. Ehrhard singled home Miller, James Tibbs III brought in Tromp with a sacrifice fly, and Chris Newell’s RBI single scored Ehrhard. Oklahoma City sent six runs across before the inning ended, pushing the lead to 7-0.
Ferris surrendered his first hit in the bottom half when Miguel Andujar reached on a soft ground ball to the mound. It did little to disrupt him. Ferris followed by getting Nick Solak on a force play and striking out Castañon, adding two more strikeouts to an afternoon already full of them.
The game had been decided, but the Comets’ lineup delivered its loudest swing in the eighth. Fitzgerald walked, Miller singled and Ehrhard walked to load the bases. Thomas drove in Fitzgerald with a single to left, and Tibbs followed with another sacrifice fly.
Newell finished the surge against Daison Acosta. With Ehrhard and Thomas aboard, he drove a line drive over the center-field wall for his third home run, capping the five-run inning and setting the final margin.
Newell went 2-for-3 with four RBIs. Fitzgerald finished 2-for-4 with two doubles, a walk and an RBI, while Ehrhard reached three times, scored twice and drove in a run. Thomas added two hits, a walk, an RBI and a run.
Ferris returned for the eighth and issued his only walk before recording another strikeout. Garrett McDaniels retired the lone batter he faced to finish the inning, and Edwin Díaz handled a scoreless ninth. Andujar doubled with two outs for his second hit—and El Paso’s second—before Díaz induced the final groundout.
Ferris improved to 4-5, fronting a shutout in which Oklahoma City finished with 14 hits and no errors. The offense supplied the avalanche, but Ferris ensured the Comets never needed one.