My DD just turned 16 in Feb. She is playing on a second year 16u team. This past weekend we played in a state tournament and our coach decided he would use DD as the closer for each game. She did an awesome job. She works well under pressure. Probably better than normally! She is very level headed and does not let the emotion of the game interfere with the job at hand. In 5 games she got six strikeouts, only allowed two hits and one walk. And no earned runs. She has struggled with walks this season but I feel it was due to under performance of her defense. She tried too hard to get the strikouts instead of letting the hitters hit and trusting her defense. Her pitching coach and I have been working with her to realize it is not her job to strikout every batter. It is her job to get the ball in play and if she gets the strikeout then its a bonus. Since we have been working on this she has only allowed 4 walks in 13 games. We have instructed her to pitch for the strikeout until the count goes to 31 or 32 then bring the over the corner pitch for them to try to hit. At least then she has a 50/50 chance they will swing. She has a lot of movement and thats is sometimes what gets her into the 31 - 32 count.
With this being said I think the coach made his decision based on this. My question is this:
Being a closer she has not got the equal pitching time as the other pitchers. But she has gotten the recognition. Not having the pitching time concerns me for stamina reasons going into high school ball and college ball. It certainly helps her stats but pitching a seven inning game could wind up to be very tiring for her and may affect her performance in the long run. She is a hard worker and practices a couple of times a week plus throwing in her lesson. If she can hold her pitch count down during these seven inning games I think she would be ok but if she has one of those long, dreaded innings where everything falls off the wagon it could tax her strength. She seems to think she will be ok. She says she throws alot of balls back to back in practice and in her lesson and its not like getting the breaks between innings.
I would like to get some feed back from the gurus who know the game on the advantages and disadvantages of being a closing pitcher. I don't see many colleges utilizing closers in softball!
With this being said I think the coach made his decision based on this. My question is this:
Being a closer she has not got the equal pitching time as the other pitchers. But she has gotten the recognition. Not having the pitching time concerns me for stamina reasons going into high school ball and college ball. It certainly helps her stats but pitching a seven inning game could wind up to be very tiring for her and may affect her performance in the long run. She is a hard worker and practices a couple of times a week plus throwing in her lesson. If she can hold her pitch count down during these seven inning games I think she would be ok but if she has one of those long, dreaded innings where everything falls off the wagon it could tax her strength. She seems to think she will be ok. She says she throws alot of balls back to back in practice and in her lesson and its not like getting the breaks between innings.
I would like to get some feed back from the gurus who know the game on the advantages and disadvantages of being a closing pitcher. I don't see many colleges utilizing closers in softball!