It has been a curious season for softball pitching. At the outset of the season, Oregon looked to have a pair of solid aces in Lyndsey Grein and Elise Sokolsky, along with a healed Taylour Spencer. It appeared that Version 8 was going to have the most solid pitching of a Lombardi team.
The non-conference portion of this season did not go as well as 2025. There also appeared to be a concerted effort to not overuse Grein and see what this team had with Spencer and freshman Maddie Milhorn. While the
results may not have been ideal, the season was early and there was still the all-important conference slate.
During conference play, Sokolsky was injured and it looked like Grein was relegated back to being the workhorse. It also felt like her performance had slipped a bit. Sokolsky in 2026 appeared to not be in the same form as the last six weeks of 2025 and into the playoffs. Spencer seemed hit-and-miss; was she doing as well as Staci Chambers in 2025? Chambers was injured much of the season and was critical in Oregon’s NCAA tournament run, but I really didn’t have a feel for the play of Chambers during the regular season.
Like most of the Addicted To Quack staff, I am suspicious of hunches in the absence of supporting data. I wanted to compare pitching stats between 2025 and 2026 and try to glean some understanding heading into this year’s NCAA tournament.
I decided to only look at pitching during conference play of both seasons. The non-conference schedule can wildly fluctuate in terms of the caliber of opponent and skew numbers. While the Ducks did well against ranked non-conference teams in 2025, that was not the case in 2026. To me, the non-conference play of ‘25 and ‘26 canceled each other out.
The conference portion of both seasons have curious parallels that work favorably in comparing the seasons. Oregon won all of their series in both seasons and also lost the first game they played in the Big Ten tournament. The conference stats for these seasons, therefore, offer about as even a comparison as one can find.
First, we look at Lyndsey Grein.
Lyndsey Grein
Because of Sokolsky’s injury and the choice to only insert Spencer and Milhorn when it was relatively safe or absolutely necessary, Lyndsey Grein has been used in conference play more than I had initially suspected. Her numbers across the board are better than I thought, and better than last year. My perception is undoubtedly clouded by Grein’s propensity for giving up home runs, and this season there were a couple of glaring instances of Grein’s pitching breakdown that cloud the perception of just how well Grein is pitching this season.
Grein’s overall numbers were excellent in conference play. The only fall-off that I see is in runs and doubles (triples are extremely rare so I do not include them), and there is probably a correlation between the higher percentage of runs and the twofold increase in doubles.
Next, we look at Elise Sokolsky.
Elise Sokolsky
I could tell that Elise Sokolsky has been impacted by injury this season, but I was not prepared for just how unfortunate these statistics are.
Since coming back from injury, her performance has been erratic. She has shown flashes of last year’s form, such as her outstanding showing in the Game 1 win against UCLA on May 1, but then you look at the first-round tourney loss against Wisconsin, and it’s…troubling. I think how far Oregon goes in the NCAA tournament is directly linked to how well (or not) Sokolsky pitches.
I was originally going to list only Grein’s and Sokolsky’s stats. I then looked at Staci Chambers and Taylour Spencer, and their conference stats are too similar not to list.
Chambers/Spencer
Spencer’s numbers are better in comparison than I would have guessed. The difference here is that Chambers did not recover from an injury until right before the NCAA tournament. Chambers was an X-factor because she was a seasoned veteran, a proven quantity, and a LHP.
While Taylour Spencer can contribute positively to Oregon’s postseason run, I don’t expect her to have the impact that Chambers did last season. I think that this year’s X-factor is whether Sokolsky can rise to the form she displayed toward the end of last season.
