BILLERICA >> The maxim is echoed throughout the Shawsheen Tech baseball team’s dugout.

The musing is simple but perhaps overly optimistic.

“We’ve got a saying here, ‘No free bases,’ ” said head coach Brian McCarthy.

Free bases are bound to be relinquished throughout a high school baseball season. Walks, errors and defensive miscues can pile up on a club. They lead to runs.

But the Rams have taken their defensive motto to new heights. Shawsheen isn’t just prohibiting its opposition from acquiring free bags. The closest opponents have gotten to home plate this season is in the handshake line after the game.

Shawsheen hasn’t allowed a run through a perfect 6-0 start and outscored its competition by an eye-popping 56-0.

“This is something I haven’t seen before,” McCarthy said. “I’ve been there 13 years, and we’ve had a handful of good teams. But I’ve never seen a start where we also haven’t given up a run for the first quarter of a season.”

The dominance began with a 10-0 romp over Mystic Valley. A 5-0 blanking of Dracut was followed by a 10-0 dispatching of Lowell Catholic. The ball kept on rolling, leading to shutout wins over Greater Lawrence (12-0), Northeast Metro (8-0) and Concord-Carlisle (11-0). The Rams will put their shutout streak on the line Wednesday at Whittier Tech.

Returning CAC MVP Lukas Poirier made for high hopes for the Rams, a year removed from a 20-4 season that yielded a fourth straight league crown and a Sweet 16 appearance in the Div. 3 state tournament.

“I knew right away we had a special group coming in,” McCarthy said. “Did I think we weren’t going to let up a run the first six games? Probably not.”

Poirier, who was 6-1 on the bump last spring, was the catalyst of the torrid start. The Wilmington resident tossed six innings of five-hit ball in the season opener against Mystic Valley. In 10 innings this season, he’s 2-0. But he’s only one half of the two-headed monster Shawsheen brings to the mound.

Junior Will Trach, also of Wilmington, is what McCarthy calls a “power pitcher.” He’s compiled 23 strikeouts in 16 innings, allowing only seven hits. He posted a pair of nine-strikeout outings against Dracut and Lowell Catholic before fanning five Concord-Carlisle batters.

“Knowing that we had the MVP of the league coming back and then Will Trach, a power pitcher, that we had a 1A and a 1B,” McCarthy said. “We don’t really have just one ace — we’ve got two.”

The Rams even boast sophomore Cole Pellegrino, of Billerica, who impressed in his debut with a complete-game shutout against Northeast. He struck out five and allowed three hits. In the bullpen, Billerica’s Max Carpenter has allowed just two hits in four appearances.

“Nobody wants to be that pitcher or defender that gives up the first run of the season,” McCarthy said. “So it’s really become a point of pride for us.”

“We’re all just throwing strikes,” Poirier said. “That’s really it.”

McCarthy said his pitchers’ confidence in their defense has made it easy to pound the strike zone. Shawsheen pitchers rarely walk batters.

“They can’t score if you keep them off the bases,” Trach said.

They also can’t score if you pack a five-pitch repertoire and a fastball reaching velocities upwards of 86 miles per hour. Trach’s arsenal consists of a four-seam and two-seam fastball, curveball, slider and changeup.

“I think it’s definitely an advantage,” Trach said. “Rather than having two pitches and the hitters having a 50/50 chance at guessing, now you have five different pitches in play and they have no idea what’s coming.”

The Rams have been just as relentless offensively, led by Ryan Jamieson’s .533 average with eight RBI. Poirier has slashed .500 with six RBI, while Dyllon Pratt is hitting.493 with 10 RBI, including a grand slam over Concord-Carlisle.

“Like they say in the hitting pillars, see fastball, hit fastball. I’m a big first-pitch fastball guy,” said Pratt, a Billerica resident.

Shawsheen’s defense is also formidable.

McCarthy tabbed Billerica’s Jamieson as the best defensive outfielder he’s coached in 13 years. Few balls get past Shawsheen’s stud center fielder.

“It’s kind of easy out there when your pitchers aren’t allowing that many hits,” said a modest Jamieson.

“We have a quote, ‘Reps remove doubt.’ And that shows when we go out there to play.”

Last Saturday, at 8 a.m., the Rams practiced because most of the team works at a co-op. School wasn’t in session Friday, but the work world didn’t stop.

“That’s what’s great about Shawsheen,” McCarthy said. “You got kids who are putting in 40-hour days in the shop or on the job site, and then they come out here to play after. And they come with a great attitude and great sense of enthusiasm.”

Jamieson works at a sheet metal company in Billerica from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Sometimes for practice it’s hot, you just had a long day of work and you got up early … but when we do win those games and it shows that all the practice paid off, it’s just that much more rewarding,” Jamieson said.