I did the math and came to the this conclusion: As best as I can tell from ncaa.com, there were approximately 7313 D1 softball games played last year. Of those, 1727 (or 23.6%) resulted in a shutout. If 71.6% of the teams that scored first won, that should mean that there were 5236 instances where the first scorer won, and 2077 where they lost. Now if we remove the shutouts, we see that the first-scoring team has a record of 3509-2077 in games where both teams scored, or 62.8%. This isn't as eye-popping as 71.6%, but still significant. I'm still skeptical that it really means much in terms of the importance of scoring first. Obviously, scoring more is how you win the game, and if you have more runs, it's more likely that one of your runs was the first one.