More news from the "Life isnt fair" Dept.

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I have a college pitcher who has been plagued by the other side of that coin. She rarely gives up more than two solid contacts a game, and those are almost always caught. But hitters manage to stick the bat out and get the ball just out into no-man's land. Or the ball gets a funny spin on it and a fielder makes an error. In other words, she pitches a great game, but ends up losing, time after time.

The other pitcher gets hit much harder, but those contacts are normally right at the fielder. The pitches didn't fool anyone, but the ball makes a beeline to the glove. That also helps her get by with walking more hitters than you would normally expect a pitcher at that level to walk. She gets the wins and looks like an Ace.

It's a funny, strange game.

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One of DD friends pitched for a NAIA D1 college team, she had great spin on the ball and pitched to contact, but she seemed to suffer from bloopers and error from her fielders, very few hard hit balls.

At the end of the year she had the lowest ERA by far for the team and the third lowest in the division, but the most runs scored on her for her team. The coach suggested she speed up her game, time between pitches, IMO blaming her for all the errors because of time between pitches and fielders losing concentration.

DD has been called for quick pitching a few times, game moves right along if she is pitching.

an FYI update:
the batters with the terrible swings (AND no work ethic) were named all-stars.
they don't practice on their own and defensively cannot play anything other than their primary position. One of them can barely do that (seriously).
coach fabricated stats to make them all look better, including a senior who was only adequate at her position and batted in the .200's.

Yay HS Ball!!

Assuming besides that they are really good.

Assuming besides that they are really good

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you're killing me!

Thank you all for the great responses! I went back thru the thread and put together all the nuggets of wisdom that would help her understand that she's not alone and this is how it goes sometimes. I sent it to DD for her to read later, hopefully she recognizes this as an opportunity for growth.

Hard work does not beat talent most of the time in younger kids. It sucks, but there are people that can just walk on a
field and do what they want. They don't require the practice that others do. But they also don't have
the goals that hard workers normally do because of their attitude. These kids usually are the ones that
end up quitting when talent doesn't carry them against other talented kinds that work hard.

Laziness will catch up to a persons talent...that's a guarantee in life.

CoreSoftball20 said:

Hard work does not beat talent most of the time in younger kids. It sucks, but there are people that can just walk on a
field and do what they want. They don't require the practice that others do. But they also don't have
the goals that hard workers normally do because of their attitude. These kids usually are the ones that
end up quitting when talent doesn't carry them against other talented kinds that work hard.

Laziness will catch up to a persons talent...that's a guarantee in life.

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Dude! You should turn this into a motivational poster. Great post man!

Hard work does not beat talent most of the time in younger kids. It sucks, but there are people that can just walk on a
field and do what they want. They don't require the practice that others do.

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I agree with younger kids, but these are 17 y.o. HS kids and these players are by no means studs.

But they also don't have the goals that hard workers normally do because of their attitude. These kids usually are the ones that
end up quitting when talent doesn't carry them against other talented kinds that work hard.

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this does apply. these kids all quit TB because the coach they had since they were 6 (playing rec ball) hung up his bucket from TB and they were only playing TB because their coach started a team. now that coach is the AC of the HS team . none of these kids has any intention of playing softball in college.

I would be interested to see what type of pitching they are seeing. I find that with my own daughter (12u) when she sees bad pitching she is a mediocre hitter and when she sees good pitching she is above average. Right now she leads her team in all offensive categories but I find in games she struggles it typically against poor pitching and the 'lesser' more 'unskilled' hitters will have some success.

In her case, we try not to make comparisons with other people and just worry about what we can control and that is ourselves. Trust me it get frustrating seeing her struggle against bad pitching when Others seem to be having some success but when we do see that lights out pitcher and she is having success I am greatful that we are staying the course as we believe there is a much bigger picture down the road.

Good luck to you, I wish your daughter well