The Oklahoma City Comets are headed to the postseason.
Left-hander Jackson Ferris struck out a career-high 13 batters over 7.2 scoreless innings Wednesday, Sept. 16, as the Comets shut out the El Paso Chihuahuas 12-0 to clinch the Pacific Coast League second-half title at Southwest University Park.
Oklahoma City (45-26 second half, 86-59 overall) will face first-half champion Las Vegas in a best-of-three PCL Championship Series beginning Tuesday, Sept. 22. The Comets are chasing their second PCL title in four years.
Ferris dominates
Ferris retired the first 18 batters he faced, carrying a perfect game into the seventh inning before Miguel Andújar broke it up with an infield single. The left-hander allowed just one hit and one walk while throwing a career-high 102 pitches.
His 13 strikeouts matched the most by an Oklahoma City pitcher since Emmet Sheehan fanned 13 on June 25, 2025, at Sacramento, according to the team. Ferris became the sixth pitcher in the Comets' Bricktown era to reach that mark in a single start.
The outing was also the longest by a Comets starter since Yefry Ramirez threw a complete game on May 12, 2022, at Round Rock.
Over his last six outings, Ferris has allowed four runs in 36 innings with 48 strikeouts.
Offense piles on
The Comets scratched across the first run in the fifth inning on a Chadwick Tromp sacrifice fly. The game broke open in the seventh, when Oklahoma City strung together six hits and two walks for a six-run frame to take a 7-0 lead.
Chris Newell, coming off the bench, belted a three-run home run in the eighth inning. He finished 2-for-3 with four RBI, homering for the third time in four games.
Ryan Fitzgerald went 2-for-4 with two doubles, an RBI and three runs scored. His 100th RBI of the season made him and teammate James Tibbs III the first pair of Comets to each reach 100 RBI in a season during the Bricktown era, according to the team. It was also the first time two players on the same PCL team accomplished the feat since 2019.
Zach Ehrhard extended his hitting streak to eight games, going 1-for-3 with an RBI and two runs scored. His 113 runs on the season tie Ryan Ward's 2025 mark for the Bricktown-era single-season record.
Díaz rehabs, shutout sets mark
Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Edwin Díaz, a three-time All-Star recovering from neck inflammation, threw a scoreless ninth inning on 15 pitches as part of a major league rehab assignment.
The shutout was Oklahoma City's 13th of 2026, the most by the franchise since at least 2004 and the most in the PCL since San Antonio posted 14 in 2019. El Paso managed just two hits, matching the fewest allowed by the Comets in a game this season.
The Comets have four regular-season games remaining before the championship series. The next game is Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7:35 p.m. CT at Southwest University Park in El Paso.
