The Morning Commute for Friday, June 20th, 2025.
Welcome to the Morning Commute
Today we’re talking about rehabbing softball rosters.
There’s no question this spring didn’t go as planned for Larissa Anderson. After a lackluster season the Tigers then lost their best pitcher and one of their best position players to the transfer portal when Taylor Pannell and Madison Walker left. It’s been a relatively quiet spring beyond that. Anderson added Jake Epstein to the coaching staff, and they signed East Carolina outfielder Emma Jackson and now they’ve added a piece to the pitching puzzle in Houston transfer Rylee Michalak.
From MUTigers.com:
University of Missouri softball head coach Larissa Anderson and her staff announced Thursday the signing of transfer right-handed pitcher Rylee Michalak.
Michalak, a Hamilton, New Jersey, native, heads to Mizzou after spending her freshman campaign at Houston.
She made 23 appearances in the circle for the Cougars with 14 starts. Michalak notched a team-best 35 strikeouts over 59.2 innings to go with a 6-5 mark in 2025.
She pitched a career-best 9.1 innings in Houston’s 6-4 extra-inning win over New Mexico on Feb. 8.
Michalak registered a complete-game victory over UCF on April 26, going the distance allowing four runs on eight hits with four strikeouts.
Michalak also tallied a Big 12 win over Iowa State on March 8. She threw 5.1 innings, giving up only four hits while striking out three.
She spun a win over Houston Christian (April 22), tossing four shutout innings and allowing just one hit while striking out a career-high five batters.
Adding a young pitcher, but one with experience, is a smart move for a program looking to rebound, though her stats (a 5.75 ERA and more BB than K) are an bit eye-opening, per Karen. There is still a lot to do in order to move this program back into the top of the conference like they’ve been in recent years.
Yesterday at Rock M and Rock M+
- All we had yesterday was a Commute talking about the Non-Con schedule:
Though, it’s pretty disappointing to see the rest of the non-con filled with a bunch of other Quad 4 games — which puts a lot of pressure to do enough in the SEC to earn an at-large bid.
Sammy isn’t a big fan of the Q4 games. I don’t know of anyone who is, I will say that Missouri has upgraded, even if it’s just slightly, by playing fewer truly awful teams like they did a year ago. Last year there were 8 games against teams ranked 250 or worse, including multiple games against teams in the bottom 10. Only Prairie View A&M projects (per BartTorvik.com) to be in that range.
I’m ok with one game where you should just absolutely blast someone, but last season it just got rough. For more of my thoughts on it, check out the forthcoming episode of Dive Cuts.
- Over at Rock M+ we’re talking about newly hired Assistant Defensive Line Coaches from Miami:
Mizzou is set to hire Miami linebacker analyst Sabbath Joseph as their assistant defensive line coach.
We’re also breaking down the Non-Con schedule, and DataMizzou has cracked it.
Rock M Radio: New Dive Cuts should be dropping soon
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