- Feb 17, 2014
- 543
- 28
Lots to reply to....
I'm glad you started this thread and I hope a lot more people contribute. I want to learn something.
As far as the pitcher shaking me off... a lot depends on the situation. Here's an example. She's facing a batter, big strong kid. Her 1st AB, she's way ahead of everything, pulling it foul. You can tell this kid wants to hit and hit the crap out of the ball. Change ups she's pulling crazy hard. She fouls off 6-8 inside pitches in a row. So, I call an outside change up. Pitcher shakes me off. So, I go inside change low that the pitcher misses high and get her swinging. Ask the pitcher between innings why she shook me off and she said she was afraid the hitter would crush an outside change up. So, with my idea that we call pitches where the pitcher is comfortable I ask her how she wants to pitcher her next time. She's says let's stay inside. So, next AB, she's rips an inside fastball to LF for a single. I felt like she knew it was coming.
A couple tournies later she's pitching in a champ game. Around the 3rd inning or so, she's shaking off change ups. After 3 or 4 times, I go talk to her on the mound. Ask her what's up. She says she's not throwing the change up very well and doesn't want to throw it. I tell that's fine but we can't just throw fastballs. She says what about the curve. I've noted at this point that she's thrown the curve 9 straight times for a ball. So that's not working either. So, I tell her that and she smiles and says let's work fastball & change up. I was going to tell her I was calling change ups and she needs to throw them but she decided to on her own.
We throw a lot of outside pitches. That first pitch changeup to a good hitter is outside. I see quite a few weak groundballs to 2B because hey hit it off the end of the bat.
What's the hardest pitch to hit? I think an inside fastball. So, if you're on the plate I'm coming inside because its hard to turn on it and hit it decently.
Yeah outside in stealing situations to give the catcher a better opportunity to make a good throw. The situation dictates it for sure though.
Inside to slappers it like I was saying above about inside pitches. Harder to hit. Also, its a slapper trying to hit the ball to the left side to beat a throw? Its harder to hit an inside pitch to the left. I see lots of foul balls. Could it be the slappers we face aren't the greatest?
As far as playing reactive, I don't know if I see it that way. I think I play to the advantages of the situation. I will say that I've been thinking a lot about it lately just for the fact that I think our 3 pitchers get ahead with 2 strikes a ton but don't strike a lot of people out. I worry about being predictable. If DD's bread & butter is outside drops, should I really throw it >70% of the time? Just pulled 70% out of the air. I feel like if the batter know what's coming, they have an advantage.
I will bring my pitching charts with me next week and maybe we can speed some time talking about that as well?
I'm glad you started this thread and I hope a lot more people contribute. I want to learn something.
As far as the pitcher shaking me off... a lot depends on the situation. Here's an example. She's facing a batter, big strong kid. Her 1st AB, she's way ahead of everything, pulling it foul. You can tell this kid wants to hit and hit the crap out of the ball. Change ups she's pulling crazy hard. She fouls off 6-8 inside pitches in a row. So, I call an outside change up. Pitcher shakes me off. So, I go inside change low that the pitcher misses high and get her swinging. Ask the pitcher between innings why she shook me off and she said she was afraid the hitter would crush an outside change up. So, with my idea that we call pitches where the pitcher is comfortable I ask her how she wants to pitcher her next time. She's says let's stay inside. So, next AB, she's rips an inside fastball to LF for a single. I felt like she knew it was coming.
A couple tournies later she's pitching in a champ game. Around the 3rd inning or so, she's shaking off change ups. After 3 or 4 times, I go talk to her on the mound. Ask her what's up. She says she's not throwing the change up very well and doesn't want to throw it. I tell that's fine but we can't just throw fastballs. She says what about the curve. I've noted at this point that she's thrown the curve 9 straight times for a ball. So that's not working either. So, I tell her that and she smiles and says let's work fastball & change up. I was going to tell her I was calling change ups and she needs to throw them but she decided to on her own.
We throw a lot of outside pitches. That first pitch changeup to a good hitter is outside. I see quite a few weak groundballs to 2B because hey hit it off the end of the bat.
What's the hardest pitch to hit? I think an inside fastball. So, if you're on the plate I'm coming inside because its hard to turn on it and hit it decently.
Yeah outside in stealing situations to give the catcher a better opportunity to make a good throw. The situation dictates it for sure though.
Inside to slappers it like I was saying above about inside pitches. Harder to hit. Also, its a slapper trying to hit the ball to the left side to beat a throw? Its harder to hit an inside pitch to the left. I see lots of foul balls. Could it be the slappers we face aren't the greatest?
As far as playing reactive, I don't know if I see it that way. I think I play to the advantages of the situation. I will say that I've been thinking a lot about it lately just for the fact that I think our 3 pitchers get ahead with 2 strikes a ton but don't strike a lot of people out. I worry about being predictable. If DD's bread & butter is outside drops, should I really throw it >70% of the time? Just pulled 70% out of the air. I feel like if the batter know what's coming, they have an advantage.
I will bring my pitching charts with me next week and maybe we can speed some time talking about that as well?