How UCLA softball ace Taylor Tinsley thrives amid heavy workload

As Taylor Tinsley prepares to pitch in her biggest games of the season for UCLA’s softball team, her parents have commenced their own routine.

Flying from Atlanta to Los Angeles on Delta. Working remotely out of the Tiverton House near campus. Settling into their usual seats behind home plate at Easton Stadium.

It’s the same pattern Keith and Denise Tinsley follow every time Taylor pitches at her home away from the family’s suburban Atlanta home.

“We’re going broke and wearing out some credit cards,” Keith Tinsley, Taylor’s father, told The California Post, “but it’s worth it.”

Their daughter certainly knows what it’s like to go the distance.

Essentially making up the Bruins’ rotation herself, Tinsley has started every postseason game and pitched 67 ⅔ of the team’s last 76 innings. The senior right-hander could be UCLA’s first pitcher to start every NCAA Tournament game on the way to the Women’s College World Series since Ally Carda in 2015.

Watching in amazement, the Tinsleys find themselves spellbound by their daughter throwing nearly every pitch.

“As a parent, you’re loving it and it’s fun to watch, and at the same time, it’s like, God, I hope her arm doesn’t fall off,” Keith said with a laugh.

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Taylor will start Friday evening at Easton Stadium when the Bruins (50-8), seeded No. 8 nationally, open their best-of-three Super Regional against Central Florida (41-17-1). She’ll likely start Game 2 as well — and should there be a Game 3, expect to see her again.

The heavy workload — along with intensive recovery involving cold tubs, massage therapy and stretching — means that the Tinsleys don’t get to spend much time with their daughter on the cross-country trips. A breakfast, perhaps. Maybe some coffee together or an In-N-Out run.

The payoff could come in the Bruins’ first national championship since 2019 given their record-breaking offense and a pitcher who takes the ball from her coach and rarely gives it back.

“That would be the best thing ever,” Tinsley said of winning a title alongside fellow seniors Megan Grant and Jordan Woolery.

A sentimental synopsis of Tinsley’s importance materialized last week after she had pitched practically every inning of UCLA’s three victories in the regional round.

Asked what Tinsley brought to the team, coach Kelly Inouye-Perez started to answer before choking up. Seated next to her coach, Tinsley leaned her head into Inouye-Perez’s shoulder in a show of support before reaching out to hold her hand.

Breaking the heavy silence, Grant interjected so that her coach could compose herself.

“We know what she’s doing for us,” Grant said of Tinsley. “She is sacrificing everything for this team.”

Eventually, after wiping away the tears but still struggling to speak, Inouye-Perez said, “A lot — what she means, a lot. She has a lot of fight and she has a lot of guts, and she will definitely go down in history as one of my most impactful pitchers, and I love her to death.”

With that, the coach reached over to pull Tinsley into a warm embrace.

Tinsley has mostly gone it alone after the transfers of fellow pitchers Kaitlyn Terry and Addisen Fisher before the season. Three others have started games for the Bruins, but no one has emerged as a reliable No. 2 option.

In an encouraging development, sophomore Brynne Nally pitched 2 ⅔ quality innings of relief last week against California Baptist. Every other inning was handled by Tinsley, who has compiled a 30-6 record with a 3.03 ERA and 22 complete games.

Lessening the strain on her arm is that she’s not purely a fireballer, heavily mixing softer pitches into her repertoire. Tinsley also has maintained a year-round routine of running, yoga and Pilates to stay in what Inouye-Perez called the best shape of her life.

Her start in the sport will never cease to amuse her father, who played softball recreationally.

“I came home one night from slow pitch, the mud, the blood and the beer all over me, my hand’s wrapped up and my wife’s like, ‘I just signed up Taylor for softball,’ ” Keith said. “I’m like, ‘No, you didn’t — look at me. She’s 4 years old. You’re not putting my baby girl out there.’ She said, ‘I’m not raising a sissy girl,’ so I was like, ‘All right, let’s go.’ ”

Away they went, the father coaching his daughter until she became too advanced for his expertise. Appreciating UCLA’s history as the most dominant college program in the sport, Tinsley fantasized about becoming a Bruin even though it was seemingly a world apart from her small, private high school.

Inouye-Perez fulfilled those dreams when she started recruiting the player rated as Softball America’s top high school pitcher, talking on the phone a few times a week for multiple hours — often about things that had nothing to do with softball.

“It’s almost like a family, mom-daughter kind of relationship in that way,” Tinsley said, “just because she is able to connect with me on a deeper level and really understand me, and I think that’s important for honestly everyone to have a coach like that who really truly cares about your well-being beyond the field.”

Of course, family support is never far from Tinsley. All she has to do is look up in the stands behind home plate.