Ruby Meylan Collecting All Sorts of Recognition

On the Cowgirls bus ride down to Austin last week, Kenny Gajewski took exception with the fact that Ruby Meylan wasn’t the Big 12’s Pitcher of the Week after leading the Cowgirls to wins against Oklahoma and Arizona (x2).

“I should be bringing up that Ruby’s not Pitcher of the Week,” Gajewski told a group of media over Zoom on the bus ride. “That may be the most absurd thing I’ve seen this whole year. We’re in a world where everything has to be fair, so we gotta give it to somebody else, I guess. That’s an absurd thing I’ve seen this week.”

A week removed from that, and there aren’t many softball accolades that have come out without Meylan’s name on them.

On Tuesday, Meylan was named Pitcher of the Week by the Big 12, D1Softball, Softball America and USA Softball. On Wednesday, she was named a USA Softball Player of the Year Top 25 Finalist.

After the week (or month depending on how far back you want to go) Meylan has had, it’s hard to argue against the flowers she is receiving.

The Cowgirls’ ace started last week with a complete game shutout of No. 4 Texas in Austin, allowing the hot-hitting Horns just two hits while striking out four.

Then she threw complete games against Baylor on Friday and Sunday, allowing a combined two earned runs while doing so.

Meylan sits fifth nationally in innings pitched this season with 193 2/3. She has a 2.20 ERA on the year, and her 179 strikeouts rank 14th nationally. She’s 23-6 on the year with those 23 wins tying for fifth nationally.

OSU has won the past dozen games Meylan has pitched in entering the Cowgirls’ game against Tulsa on Wednesday night.

“I think the last two Wednesdays (OU and Texas) have probably been two of the better games I’ve seen her pitch,” Gajewski said Tuesday. “When you face elite, elite offenses, the hitters don’t stop. The numbers you just see keep running up on the scoreboard, you just quit watching. It’s like, ‘How are they hitting .480? How are they hitting .440? How do they have 20, 30, 20, 20, 20 home runs?’ It’s just like what in the world is going on here. And to watch them swing and miss and not hit a lot of balls hard, I think it tells you all you need to know about her and what she’s doing.

“Not only are they swinging and missing, they swung and missed with some very uncharacteristic swings, which tells me they’re guessing and they’re in between, which tells me all the things we worked on with the rise and the change are real pitches that have real movement and deception. It’s been really cool to watch. It’s gotta be way up there. It’s gotta be at the very top.”