OU, Oklahoma State dumped college softball's ride-your-ace philosophy. Good thing they did.
Jenni CarlsonOklahoman
Patty Gasso remembers the exact moment she was done with softball’s long-held philosophy of using only one dominant pitcher.
It was June 2016, and the OU coach had her team in the championship series of the Women's College World Series. Gasso should have been relishing the success and enjoying the moment, but instead, she found herself worrying nonstop about Sooner ace Paige Parker.
She had pitched every inning of every game in regionals and super regionals, then pitched six consecutive days at the WCWS.
But on the seventh day, she rested.
Gasso forced her ace to do so, sitting Parker in the the second game of the best-of-three championship series.
“I can still remember the feelings of being extremely uncomfortable pushing her to a limit that I was uncomfortable with, throwing every inning and every pitch of every game from the regional through the World Series,” Gasso said.
More:What you need to know about NCAA softball tournament, road to WCWS in OKC
Parker sat. The Sooners lost. But she came back the next night, and OU won the title.
Still, that experience changed Gasso’s mind about depending so heavily on an ace.
“I’m never doing this again,” she thought.
She isn’t alone in college softball.
Gone are the days when teams pitched their aces almost exclusively, even though they always had more than one pitcher on their rosters. Now, most of the nation's best teams use two or even three pitchers in regular rotation.
Of the 19 pitchers in major-college softball who've thrown at least 200 innings so far this season, only four are on teams in the NCAA Tournament, and only one, Northwestern, is a regional host.
These days, chances are if you're great, you're throwing multiple pitchers.
That's the case at OU and OSU, and with the NCAA Tournament soon to begin, no teams have benefited more from this shift in philosophy than the Sooners and the Cowgirls. Had they not made the move, their prospects for making the WCWS and winning a national title might be vastly diminished.
Honestly, OU might be sunk if it was still operating under the ride-your-ace philosophy.
Jordy Bahl established herself as the Sooners' best arm early in the season, but a week or so ago, the freshman righty developed some soreness in her arm. She didn’t pitch in the Big 12 Tournament, and even though her absence last weekend sounded like it was more precautionary than mandatory, her availability for regionals is unknown.
Still, the Sooners made the title game in the Big 12 Tournament without Bahl, and as the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, they are expected to advance through regionals even if Bahl doesn’t pitch.
Why?
Because of Hope Trautwein and Nicole May.
The Sooners used all three throughout the season. Bahl got the lion’s share of the innings (132⅓), but Trautwein has pitched 91⅓ innings while May has pitched 69⅔. All three are capable and tested, which would be a benefit but now may be a lifesaver if Bahl is sidelined longer.
The situation at OSU isn’t quite as dire. Cowgirl ace Kelly Maxwell is still in the saddle, but since Miranda Elish suffered a tendon injury in her throwing arm almost a month ago, she hasn’t pitched. Losing her could’ve put a ton of pressure on Maxwell to throw even more innings.
But the Cowgirls had Morgan Day.
Like the Sooners, the Cowgirls used all three of their pitchers throughout the season. Not equally but still robustly. Maxwell leads the way with 148⅓ innings, but Elish has thrown 104 and Day 86.
And since Elish has been sidelined, Day has filled the void.
Day and Maxwell came up huge in the conference tournament. Maxwell got the complete-game win in the opener against Kansas, then Day followed with a complete-game win against Texas. In the title game against OU, Maxwell started, threw three solid innings, then gave way to Day, who threw five innings, got the win and was named the tournament’s most valuable player.
Of course, a scenario like that seems completely normal to baseball fans, but in college softball, it is a new phenomenon.
So, what happened to push the change?
Gasso and OSU coach Kenny Gajewski agree it started with the additional stress pitchers face nowadays.
“The offense has really obviously improved the last 10 years,” Gajewski said of the numbers across the sport. “There’s better coaching, and there’s more resources that have gone into offense.”
Home runs are up. So are runs scored and batting averages.
More players have more power than ever.
“It’s one through nine,” Gasso said. “It’s not like one through five, and then you can get away with pitches after that. The swings are harder. The bats are more aggressive. There’s just so much behind it, but I just feel the level of play every year is at a whole other level.”
And with more big hitters and better-than-ever offenses, the difficulty of surviving regionals and super regionals, then winning the WCWS has skyrocketed.
Add a format that forces teams into doubleheaders with must-win, if-necessary games, and it is almost impossible for one pitcher to handle the entire load. It’s too much physically. It’s too much mentally.
Even an ace gets worn slick.
“You just can’t survive anymore with those kids,” Gajewski said. “If you got stuck in a loser’s bracket, a No. 2 had to emerge. I think we’ve all taken notice of that over the last … probably five to six years.
“You’ve really seen a major change in that where you just need more.”
Gasso may well have been among the first coaches to have firsthand knowledge that change had to happen. She spent much of the 2016 WCWS worrying about Paige Parker. What if all the innings led to an injury? What if all pitching caused irreparable harm?
“I don’t want to damage an athlete,” Gasso said.
Even now, years later, she still looked pained by such a thought.
“Those are things I really don’t want to be responsible for,” Gasso said.
Parker finished that season having thrown 252⅓ innings. She was on pace to throw close to a thousand innings in her college career.
ut that offseason, Gasso brought in transfer Paige Lowary and freshman Mariah Lopez. The next spring, all three pitchers’ inning count went into triple digits but none came anywhere close to Parker’s high-water mark from the year before.
Their totals: Parker, 210⅓ innings; Lowary, 146⅔; Lopez, 101.
And in the WCWS, Gasso’s change in philosophy became critical. OU faced Florida in the championship series, and in the first game, the teams waged a 17-inning battle. Imagine trying to survive that with only one pitcher.
Gasso and the Sooners didn’t.
Lowary started the game, then was relieved by Parker in the sixth inning. But then, Lowary re-entered with two outs in the 12th inning.
Put that game in a time machine and move it back five years, and things might have looked vastly different. Having more than one pitcher capable of performing in the toughest moments on the biggest stages was crucial.
The same can be said for the Sooners and the Cowgirls this season.
Every pitching staff is going to have an ace, an arm that’s the best, but now, they don’t have to be the only.
