Tyler Bise and Tucker Schwartz moved up from the No. 5 and 9 spots, respectively, to the top of the lineup and it paid off.
Bise had two RBI singles and an RBI double, and Schwartz was one of 11 Jays to record a hit in Thursday's 16-4 win in five innings against the Russellville Indians in pool play of the Capital City Invitational at Vivion Field.
"It gives us a lot of speed up front and guys that have a high on-base percentage right now," Ash said. "Put Mason (Hansen) in the 5 to just give you someone to protect Jack (Shinkle) a little bit more. I kind of liked it. If you're going to mess around with a lineup, tournaments like this is a good time to do it."
Payton Bodenstab had a hit and two walks from the No. 3 spot, and Shinkle and Hansen each had a hit and RBI behind him.
Bise's double was launched to deep center field to make it 5-0 Jays in the second. He later scored on a double steal.
Hansen's hit was a triple sent to the right-field fence, making it 8-0 to start a four-run fourth inning.
Down 11-0, the Indians rallied for four runs in the fourth.
After a hit by pitch with the bases loaded scored the first run, Nick Thompson recorded Russellville's first hit of the game with an RBI single to left field.
"Our offense had kind of slowly come along this year," Russellville coach Lucas Branson said. "We haven't really hit the ball like I fully expected we would."
Mason Stewart followed that up by bouncing a grounder off the mound and into center field for an RBI single. A bases-loaded walk made it 11-4.
The teams combined to walk 13 batters and hit four others.
"I don't think coach Branson or myself would say this was one of the better performances from either one of our teams, but you take advantage of the situations that they are giving you and we did," Ash said.
The Jays scored five runs in the fifth and Landon Dunlap finished off the game with a flyout and two groundouts in the fifth to strand a runner at first.
Dunlap pitched 1 innings of one-hit relief.
Cade Galbraith threw 3 innings of no-hit ball, allowing three runs with six walks and two strikeouts.
Four players took the mound for Russellville, but three of them kept their pitch count under 26 to stay eligible to pitch today.
"That pitch count thing is kind of a challenge," Branson said. "We'll fight through it. They know they've got to go in there and throw strikes."
Russellville added the Invitational this season to beef up its schedule in hopes it'll help the Indians make another postseason run after advancing to the Class 2 quarterfinals last season.
"We appreciate the opportunity to come and play against quality competition," Branson said. " We're trying to toughen up our schedule to prepare us for hopefully that same run again this year."
Russellville (4-4) will continue pool play today, facing Eureka at 1:15 p.m. and Blair Oaks at 3:30 p.m.
Jefferson City (10-2) will take on Blair Oaks at 11 a.m. and Eureka at 5:45 p.m.