Need thoughts on situation.

[commish]

My daughter is 10. Her travel team is only practicing right now till first of April. We were asked to pitch for another travel team in an indoor spring session. Our coach is all good with it because the more mound time she gets the better.

We played last night and the coach pitched their pitcher 1st inning with 3 strike outs no walks not runs.
My daughter pitched the next three innings because we were up big. All good but for one thing.

1st inning my daughter pitched was a regular inning. He mixed up locations and fastball and change up. He never calls for drop ball but that is fine since it doesn't break all that much anyway.

2nd inning and 3rd inning he called 3 out of 4 pitches as a change up. I am not sure if he felt sorry for the team we were playing or he wanted the defense to get some work. There were only 2 balls put in play a base hit and a ground ball to 3rd.

I want my daughter not to get use to throwing this way. That is taking it easy on the other team. Am I wrong in my thinking?

 

[quincy]

I do not know about taking it easy but she doesn't need to strike everyone out either.

 

[djcarter1966]

Ideally the coach would have let your DD pitch 2 innings then would have let #3 pitcher have an inning or two, maybe they don't have a #3? This is the perfect situation for someone who maybe has not pitched a game before but has been practicing. Honestly while your DD was guesting after two innings she was not really getting much out of it so I assume you would have been OK with only two innings.

It's not terrible to throw the change up so girls can hit it but you have to mix it up with regular speed pitching so your DD gets the feel for the difference. If they connect with the change swinging their best she should blow a fastball right past them.

Remember speed as well as direction can be a key component to keep an opponent off balance. Sounds like after two innings it was glorified practice/scrimmage, in situations
like this it is OK to depart from the norm but I would still always have her pitch with a goal in mind...in this case work on change up. focus on speed difference and also throwing it for a strike but
also throwing not for a strike,etc

 

[spleen1015]

My take is she's 10. She's not throwing a perfect change up. She still needs to practice. So, this was practice throwing her change up to live batters. Nothing wrong with that. She's not getting use to taking it easy on the other team just from 2 innings.

 

[commish]

I agree with the practicing with the change-up in game situation. She still gave up no runs and she was throwing the change-up very well to both sides of the plate and low. She threw 2 change-ups to start 3rd inning for strikes looking. Then she got the fastball and the girl had no chance. I was very proud of how she pitched. Only had one walk which I won't get into(questionable). Very proud of her attitude. She said she asked the coach after the second inning she pitched if she was getting the signals right and he said she was doing great.

And by the way they only have one pitcher that is why they want her to sub. For back up.

I just don't want her to lose that fighter's attitude on the mound is all.

 

[Fastpitch_Dad]

My DD is a 10u pitcher and my opinion is that the coach handled it well since he doesn't have a 3rd pitcher. In this case he was trying to help your DD get something out of the game which is much better than just blowing the FB by a weak team pitch after pitch. The irony is that this strategy can also work really well against a strong team that is overly aggressive so I wouldn't necessarily consider this a "letting up". It sounds like your DD could kept it out of the middle so congrats to her for a good game pitched.

 

[RetiredCoach]

As a coach, I am looking to develop players and pitchers. That sounds to me as if your daughter got some good practice throwing her change. I worked with one girl last summer who had a reasonably good fastball and a sort of bad change. Even though it wasn't that good I called it in game situations in hope that some practice would get it better.

 

[DNeeld]

I'm not going to guess at the motivations of the coach, because there are literally a billion reasons why he felt he should call so many change ups. Instead, I'll address what I view as your concern, and that is you believe the coach was "taking it easy" on the other team and you don't want your daughter to lose some kind of killer instinct or something like that.

First, she's 10. Keep that in perspective.

Second, she's 10.

Last, it sounds like she got a good experience and some solid circle time in a game environment. That far outweighs any perception of the coach "taking it easy" on the other team or your daughter losing a fighting attitude.

 

[FrozenRope]

When my DD played Little League last year...I almost felt guilty letting her pitch. Usually the teams have 2-3 decent players at the top of the line-up, so I let her fire away at them. When the younger less experienced kids came up....you guessed it. Nothing but change ups.

I fully support the sportsmanship of the coach you played for......and I guess the ball is in your court as to whether or not you would want a repeat. I looked at it as a great way for her to work on her change up in game situations. In real competitive games, she may only get a handful of opportunities to throw it.

 

[Greenmonsters]

Trevor Hoffman must have taken it easy on a lot of MLB teams.