[Cred]

I was really impressed with Kylie's performance yesterday. She may not be a pitcher, but she competed and challenged the UCLA hitters throughout her relief appearance. That is the biggest difference I noticed between our staff and Kylie's appearance yesterday. Our pitchers seem too overly cautious with regards to challenging hitters. As a result, we end up allowing a bunch of walks, and after we have given up a few free passes, we overcompensate and put the ball over the heart of the plate, which leads to a home-run or extra-base hit.

The stats do seem to support your perspective as expressed above. 3.40 walks per 7 innings pre-Pac 12 "season", compared to 5.83 per 7 in Pac-12 play. A few fewer walks in pre-conference play might be expected specifically because the hitting, overall, one would think, is somewhat less disciplined at the plate than is Pac-12 hitting in general, but a difference of 2.43 walks per game is quite significant, seeming to indicate that our pitchers are indeed trying to be too fine with the conference competition. If so, that's a shame, because, overall, the defense has been getting the job done this season and the frequency with which "walks" have been crossing the plate has been generally lethal.

By the way, here are Sorenson's 2014 stats as an emergency pitcher, for Pac-12 play alone: 13.33 ERA, .460 b/avg for the opposition, so enormous improvement from Year 2014 to Year 2015 (7.94 ERA, .379 b/avg). If she has stepped forward even a fraction of that since 2015, well, our shortstop may now be our pitching "ace".

[Cred]

I was really impressed with Kylie's performance yesterday. She may not be a pitcher, but she competed and challenged the UCLA hitters throughout her relief appearance. That is the biggest difference I noticed between our staff and Kylie's appearance yesterday. Our pitchers seem too overly cautious with regards to challenging hitters. As a result, we end up allowing a bunch of walks, and after we have given up a few free passes, we overcompensate and put the ball over the heart of the plate, which leads to a home-run or extra-base hit.

The stats do seem to support your perspective as expressed above. 3.40 walks per 7 innings pre-Pac 12 "season", compared to 5.83 per 7 in Pac-12 play. A few fewer walks in pre-conference play might be expected specifically because the hitting, overall, one would think, is somewhat less disciplined at the plate than is Pac-12 hitting in general, but a difference of 2.43 walks per game is quite significant, seeming to indicate that our pitchers are indeed trying to be too fine with the conference competition. If so, that's a shame, because, overall, the defense has been getting the job done this season and the frequency with which "walks" have been crossing the plate has been generally lethal.

By the way, here are Sorenson's 2014 stats as an emergency pitcher, for Pac-12 play alone: 13.33 ERA, .460 b/avg for the opposition, so enormous improvement from Year 2014 to Year 2015 (7.94 ERA, .379 b/avg). If she has stepped forward even a fraction of that since 2015, well, our shortstop may now be our pitching "ace".