Freshmen pitchers for Florida Softball have been great. Now the bats need to follow.

Heading into the 2024 season, one of the mysteries for Florida Softball was how their new look pitching staff was going to hold up. With three true freshmen and a grad transfer, Tim Walton had completely turned over the rotation in hopes of getting Florida back to the elite in college softball

Through the first ten games of the season, those pitchers are doing their job. Now the bats just need to follow in order for Florida to be a legit threat to return to Oklahoma City.

Florida Softball: Keep It Fresh

The Gators lost last night 3-0 to Oklahoma State in an impromptu game that both school were able to piece together at the last moment. The bright spot for the Gators was freshmen pitcher Keagan Rothrock, who went six innings and gave up just two hits to the 8th ranked Cowgirls.

Her lone mistake was a three run home run that came with two outs and two strikes in the third inning.

Unfortunately she wasn't able to receive any run support as the Gators only mustered three hits of their own and only managed to have a runner on second base or beyond once.

One never wants to hang too much on a single game, but ten games in there is a trend emerging with the Gators that is similar to what we saw last season.

As a pitching staff, Ava Brown, Olivia Miller, Mackenzie Wooten, and Rothrock are sporting a 0.66 ERA through ten games. Against three Power Five opponents they have faced, it is a tick higher at 1.46, but well within reason to keep the Gators in every game.

The problem for the Gators is that while they are averaging 7.9 runs per game at the plate, the split between their Power Five opponents and non Power Five is jarring.

Against non-Power Five teams, the Gators are mashing out 11 runs per game. Against the three Power Five teams they have faced, the Gators have managed 0.67 runs per game.

Florida has seven more games before they fly to California for the Judi Garman Classic. Florida should be 15-2 when they get on the plane. If they can emerge from California with a demonstrated ability to hit quality opponents, then the hype train for the 2024 season can kick into gear.

Otherwise, this will be a team scraping out 1-0 wins all season long once SEC play begins next month.