CHICKAMAUGA, Ga. — In an era of baseball when velocity is king and getting strikeouts the main focus on the mound, Gordon Lee High School’s pitching staff goes about it a different — call it “old-school” — way.
The strikeouts are still there for the team’s three senior pitchers with a combined 188 in 145 innings this season, but so are quick outs. In fact, Maddox Millard, Dustin Day and Kaden Ellis have combined to average fewer than four pitches per batter, a stat that puts a smile on the faces of head coach Mike Dunfee and pitching coach Jake Wright.
“The best pitch in baseball is the one-pitch out,” said Dunfee, whose top-seeded Trojans (36-2) play seventh-seeded Vidalia (29-10) in the GHSA Class A Division I championship series this week at Synovus Park in Columbus, with a doubleheader set for 11 a.m. Friday and a third game, if necessary, at noon Saturday.
“Our philosophy,” Dunfee continued, “and Jake has done a great job of teaching this, is don’t worry about strikeouts and just get outs, and our guys have bought into it.”
Millard (12-0, 0.46 ERA) can get a strikeout when he needs one (92 in 69 innings), but the ace knows lower pitch counts have lasting benefits.