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The Devils' staff shows signs of dominance
In late March, Culpeper baseball coach Danny Nobbs took a bunch of pitchers on the team's spring break trip to Florida.Somewhere along the way, that group developed into a staff.
Now, a month later, the CCHS pitching rotation is amongst the best in the Cedar Run District.
They flexed their muscles again last Friday, shutting out Fauquier 8-0, allowing just five hits. It was the latest in a string of quality outings from the Devils' pitchers.
The four-man rotation of Jeremy Brown, Brad Settle, Matt Ward and Cody Whitlock have paced Culpeper's 2008 team.
"It originated in Florida," Nobbs said. "Cody and Brad were a tag-team tandem, and Jeremy and Matt were a tag-team.
"They've been phenomenal."
Nobbs expected some measure of success from Brown and Settle.
Brown has been a fixture in the rotation for three years, and Settle posted a team-best 3.29 ERA in his eight starts last season.
But Nobbs needed that pair to maintain their consistency, and supplement them with others.
Ward, a sophomore, and Whitlock, a junior, have answered the call.
"We knew we had them, the question was: Would they execute?" Nobbs said. "And now that they're executing, we're fully confident in anyone we throw out there."
The coach's confidence has trickled down to the rest of the team.
Settle pitched four innings in the win over Fauquier, with Whitlock coming in for the final three.
That "tag-team" overwhelmed Fauquier's struggling offense.
"Brad has definitely shown improvement in his last couple of games," Brown said. "He has his head on his shoulder now, before he was just out there throwing.
"And Whitlock has grown tremendously in the last couple years."
Not that the other duo has been bad.
Brown also has a shutout over Fauquier — a 15-1, five-inning mercy rule victory on Mar. 25. The senior needed, amazingly, just 52 pitches to rack up the complete game.
Then, on April 15, Ward threw a mere 80 pitches in a complete-game victory at Liberty.
"It's been pretty consistent throughout the year," Ward said of the staff's performance.
Maybe a 2009 trip to Florida isn't such a bad idea.
"When you have a pitcher throwing that well, you don't have much to do," Brown said. "You just sit back and enjoy the game."
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