Jones, UVA shut out Eagles

With well over 200 career innings during his career in Charlottesville, it’s interesting to note that Friday marked the first time in which Jones went the distance, a shutout nonetheless, and he did it in thrilling fashion as he appeared to be on cruise control, allowing just a single base hit. A projected first round pick for this June’s MLB draft, Jones opened up hot out of the gate as he sat 93-95 mph with his fastball, bumping a 96, with hard sinking and running life which was even more impressive than the velocity.

Built to handle the rigors of a starting role with a durable 6-foot-3, 200-pounds, Jones showed the big velocity early before working in the 92-94 mph range over the next inning or two and eventually settled into the 90-to-92 mph range where he zipped through the back half of the game. Staying very short and fast with his arm action Jones did a nice job of regularly working on top of the ball which allowed for consistent strikes to the bottom of the zone while showing that big heavy life which he was able to harness and spill back over the outer half to his glove side. Jones also wasted little time establishing both sides of the plate in the first inning, particularly the inner half as he’d ride the fastball in on batter’s hands, and had Boston College been swinging would there would’ve been more than a couple of broken bats on the day.