Marcus Young has been nearly impossible to score on this summer with the Joplin Outlaws. He’s worked as a late-inning reliever for Dean Green all season.

The left-handed pitcher has 17 appearances and 23 innings of work. He’s posted an earned run average of .78 and a WHIP of 1.00. He’s tallied 25 strikeouts as well. He leads the team and the league with five saves.

Young has held opponents to a batting average of .133, which ranks ninth in the Mid-America League this summer.

“Marcus has had a really good summer. That’s encouraging to us,” Missouri Southern head coach Bryce Darnell said. “As far as what we want to see, just command the zone. He has a lot of life on his pitches. He gets a lot of swings and misses.”

Young prepped at Monett High School and helped the team win a district championship his senior year. He was redshirted his first year with the Lions but saw action in two games last spring with Missouri Southern State University.

He recorded one out in each appearance and surrendered two hits and a run against Fort Hays State in March. That was on the road. In April, he recorded one out and walked one batter against Central Missouri at home.

Being in Joplin all summer to give friends and family more chances to see him pitch has been important for him.

“My parents weren’t able to make it to any of my outings this spring, so for them to be here during the summer, it’s been fantastic,” Young said. “This is the first time my grandparents have been able to see me throw since my senior year (high school). That’s big. I’m a big hometown guy. I’m proud of where I came from, and I’m glad to be close.”

Young hadn’t allowed a single run in a game this summer until June 7 when the Texarkana Rhinos plated an unearned run on him during two innings of work. The Outlaws won that game 7-4.

He’s posted an 0-1 record so far as most of his outings have been saves or no decisions. His one loss came on June 19 against the Piney Woods TimberHogs. Young tossed 2 1/3 innings in that game and allowed four runs — two earned — while giving up just three hits.

Those were also the first and only earned runs he’s allowed. He’s allowed five runs total, and all of them came in those two games. He’s tossed 11 consecutive scoreless innings now.

Young also talked about what he is working on this summer in order to try and play a bigger role with the Lions in 2026.

“Summer is definitely a time to develop everything, focus more on my offspeed, throw a lot of strikes, try to get outs, whether that’s by strikeouts or groundballs, I just want to get outs,” Young said.

That offspeed is what Darnell says can be effective in his young lefty’s repertoire. He also sees Young’s delivery being something that helps his effectiveness.

“Marcus’ changeup is great and can move a lot. His delivery is a bit nontraditional, and he can lean into that and have that to his benefit,” Darnell said.

Darnell added that he’s hoping to see an expanded role from him next season.

Young went into a little detail as he talked about what it looks like for him to hone in on the offspeed pitches and trying to focus on improvement with them specifically.

“It goes down to where I’m gripping it, where I’m throwing it, work on location by picking a location and trying to hit that location every time,” he said.

When it comes to next season, Young is positive the pitching staff at MSSU will be different than in 2025 as it looks to rebound from an unexpectedly down year that saw it produce a 6.69 ERA and 1.61 WHIP.

The year before, Lions pitchers produced an ERA of 5.06 and WHIP of 1.53.

“We’re going to be better this year. … The biggest thing is if we can throw strikes and get outs, that does a lot. We kind of struggled with that a lot last year. We’re going to do our best just to get outs. That’s the most important job. If you can get outs, you can pitch at any level, and I’m definitely going to be doing that,” Young said.