Right now, we're trying to limit the innings Juarez has to pitch. She's done a lot of work elsewhere, like with national teams. They didn't want her to pitch this weekend.
They've decided that besides G. that they have three pitchers worthy of getting into the circle: returning senior Shannon Saile, redshirt freshman Brooke Vestal and true freshman Macy McAdoo. But with four games in three days, two freshmen kind of ran out of innings. All three pitched in each of the first three games.
Game four against the best opponent of the four, BYU, Saile started and pitched five shutout innings. But with a scoreless game, Patty Gasso went to Juarez and she allowed a run in the 7th after OU had scored three in B6. That run was unearned. One concerning thing in week 1, was some shaky defense. Patty has had the benefit of having her best offensive lineup contain mostly her best defensive players for four years.
That doesn't appear to be the case at this point. We have close to four players who might best be in the lineup at DP. Green is a defensive liability just about everywhere she lines up. She has a nice arm, but she's not fast enough to be a quality outfielder. And she doesn't judge the ball well. She wasn't good at first base last season.
Allow is better in the outfield, but not close to a plus defensive player. We appear to be pretty solid at 2nd, and great at short and behind the plate, when Elam is there. 3rd and 1st have some improving to do, defensively.
Rylie Boone looks to be a quality centerfielder with speed. And we'll be getting Nicole Mendez back from an injury in likely a month, hopefully in time to be close to full speed by the conference season.
This team has promise. But they have a ways to go.