Farris Is Pitch-Perfect in Announcing His Arrival

Among the most unlikely, improbable and unforeseen developments of the 2005 high school baseball season is that of junior right-hander Danny Farris of Los Alamitos.

He was listed No. 10 out of 13 pitchers on the Los Alamitos depth chart and was scheduled to play junior varsity until Coach Mark Clabough changed his mind one week before the season began.

Now, Farris has become part of Griffin baseball lore, someone alumni will talk about for years.

On April 20, he threw a perfect game against Huntington Beach. On Tuesday, he made his final regular-season appearance, throwing five shutout innings to beat the No. 1 junior pitching prospect in Southern California, Chris Tillman of Fountain Valley, 9-0.

Farris improved to 7-0 in the Sunset League, the toughest six-team league in Southern California.

His development enabled the Griffins (19-8) to earn a share of the league championship. Last year, they finished in fifth place.

Only 16, Farris has emerged as a top college prospect seemingly overnight.

“He was one of those guys who was 6-4 and will probably be 6-5 tomorrow,” Clabough said. “He was trying to find himself and has found himself.”

In youth baseball, when he was 10, Farris picked up the nickname “Wild Thing.”

“The catcher would set up outside and I’d hit the batter in the head,” he said. “It was that bad.”

Whatever happened in the last year, whether it was adjusting to his constantly changing body or improving his mechanics, Farris’ performance is no fluke.

He is throwing a mid-80s-mph fastball for strikes, getting over his curveball and enticing batters to fly out or ground out. He has walked only 16 in 60 1/3 innings and is 7-1 overall.

“The perfect game was a confidence-builder,” he said. “Everything led up to that, and it was the pinnacle.”

Standing on the mound, Farris is confident and comfortable.

“When I throw the ball, I actually know where it’s going,” he said. “Before the season, I didn’t.”

He pitched only nine innings on the freshman team and played junior varsity as a sophomore.

The fact he and his family had the patience and wisdom to trust Clabough’s judgment made a difference.

“I never heard one bit of complaining from Danny or his family,” Clabough said. “Of course, he wanted to be on varsity. He just worked and worked. It’s a rare thing today. The Farrises have done a great job raising him.”

After the perfect game, Farris’ father, Michael, presented the game ball to Clabough, something that touched and surprised the coach.

“I really appreciated what the coach had done,” Michael Farris said. “I know there’s a lot of parents pushing their kids to start as a freshman or sophomore. I just knew [Danny] was going to grow and mature.”

The scary part about Farris is that he’s going to throw harder and become even better as he continues to mature.

“I don’t think I’ve fully grown into my body yet,” he said.

Clabough is just happy Farris discovered his pitching skills this season.

“I thought he wasn’t going to figure it out until beyond high school,” he said. “To his credit and our relief, he’s turned it around in high school. He’s one of those guys scratching the surface at what he can do.”

Farris has had only one bad outing. It happened in Las Vegas, where he gave up four earned runs in two innings. It turns out he got only 90 minutes of sleep after playing cards all night with teammates.

“Now I get to bed at 9:30 every night before starts,” he said.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.