Trying to understand coach's decision...

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softgabby

Gear Empress
Mar 10, 2016
1,073
83
Just behind home plate
I'm trying to understand coach's decision during a tournament we played in over the weekend. Here's what happened.

We started this last tournament fairly early in the afternoon on Friday and we played in something like 6 games over the course of the weekend going 4-1 and winning the consolation bracket with this tournament being double elimination. I caught all our games with the exception 2 (I played third in one and the other I played DH for 5 innings and pitched the last two since our pitcher was sick from heat exhaustion).

The last game of the tournament, we play the number 1 seed. Were playing the best game we've played so far. We were kinda cruising along and were winning against the number 1 seed 6 - 4 going into the bottom of the 7th. HC DD1 got the first two batters on strike outs to bring her total to 8 in the game. She ends up walking the next batter in a 10 pitch at bat. I ask for time and walk to the circle to calm the pitcher down and tell her she's got this, let's get nasty. I never saw HC come out to make substitutions. He tells DD 2 to get her catchers gear on. I don't mean to bash my teammates or coaches on a public forum, but his DD 2 is not a very good catcher. She's a great right fielder but she kinda has accuracy issues. I don't think she needs to exactly hit her cutoff person when throwing the ball back in...but at least get the ball where they can catch it. Catcher #2 was sick from the heat and humidity from earlier. Coach tells me to head back to the dugout and that I did good. I really didn't feel tired but he still pulls me. The first pitch to the next batter, the runner on first tries to steal second. The catcher throws the second baseman high and the ball goes into center field and the runner advances to third on the error. The pitcher then walks the next batter on three more pitches. The next batter hits a walkoff 3 run homerun to win the game 7 - 6. I go out and shake all the girls and coaches hands on the other team but I'm still confused as to what coach was thinking.

If your a coach reading this could you give me a little insight on why a coach would pull a catcher in the middle of an inning?

Thanks.
 

softgabby

Gear Empress
Mar 10, 2016
1,073
83
Just behind home plate
Sounds like he should have changed pitchers instead...

That's what confuses me too. He has two other girls on our team that can pitch and can pitch well. I mean his oldest daughter is a good pitcher. Her pitches are good and she throws hard. I could tell from behind the plate she was tiring because her pitches didnt have the same speed and hardness to them as she did earlier in the game.
 

obbay

Banned
Aug 21, 2008
2,199
0
Boston, MA
We sometimes do things that seem a bit strange on the surface but have deeper meaning, but I don't know what he was thinking.

I would never pull a catcher for any reason without talking to her first and then, I can't imagine pulling her during an inning unless she was sick, injured or asked to come out (like that's gonna happen).

One time I saw a catcher go renegade and stopped working with the pitcher. wouldn't allow the pitcher to throw anything but fastballs and she wasn't a fast pitcher. I wasn't coaching that game but I would've had a talk with her and if she didn't come back to reality, I would've pulled her. I think she was left in for a number of reasons, one of which was that she was having a difficult tournament, had been replaced by a younger guest player in an earlier game, this game was probably out of reach anyway and it was her last season so they were trying to give her confidence a boost.

I still have no idea what your coach was thinking.
 

softgabby

Gear Empress
Mar 10, 2016
1,073
83
Just behind home plate
We sometimes do things that seem a bit strange on the surface but have deeper meaning, but I don't know what he was thinking.

I would never pull a catcher for any reason without talking to her first and then, I can't imagine pulling her during an inning unless she was sick, injured or asked to come out (like that's gonna happen).

One time I saw a catcher go renegade and stopped working with the pitcher. wouldn't allow the pitcher to throw anything but fastballs and she wasn't a fast pitcher. I wasn't coaching that game but I would've had a talk with her and if she didn't come back to reality, I would've pulled her. I think she was left in for a number of reasons, one of which was that she was having a difficult tournament, had been replaced by a younger guest player in an earlier game, this game was probably out of reach anyway and it was her last season so they were trying to give her confidence a boost.

I still have no idea what your coach was thinking.

Yeah, I don't get it either. I never asked to come out. I wasn't sick or injured. I was a little tired from catching three whole games in 90 degree heat with high humidity. I just wanted to see the game completed.
 
Feb 17, 2014
7,152
113
Orlando, FL
In the situation you describe you better believe that I am going to run on the relief catcher on one of the first two pitches. Should have seen that one coming.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
In the situation you describe you better believe that I am going to run on the relief catcher on one of the first two pitches. Should have seen that one coming.

I haven't seen many pitchouts in fastpitch softball..are they common?
 

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