No corners

[splinterpicker]

This is no a mental issue at all. I am wondering what is the best approach to pitch calling when corners are not called in a game. I understand a pitcher needs to find the umpires strike zone. Is up down the answer? This is elite ball and if too much ball is left on the plate the outcome will not be good. Do you take the walk? or let them hit the ball to south america? I just want to know how some more experienced coaches handle this. By the way I have had more than one umpire tell me that they are not suppose to call the river.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

I had a 10U rec team go through this last week. The strike zone was minuscule. I hoped the calls got better as the girls moved up. Unless the ball was right down the middle, there were no strikes called. We tried everything. Side to side, no. Change up, no. Drop ball, no. I had one pitcher on one team and 2 on the other. Of course, the girls that were tossing the ball down the middle were doing OK. I wasn't the coach, but my pitchers didn't change what they were throwing. The crowd finally started going "Oooooh!" every time a CU was thrown for a strike and called a ball. I finally had to walk away.

 

[Dial]

How are the girls setup behind the plate? Are they in the middle and reaching for corners or are they lined up on the corner?

 

[halskinner]

Change speeds constantly, use 3 speeds or more. Take away their timing, pitch smart.

 

[joemcq51]

A couple observations on this topic.

1. The strike zone is a box. That box has edges. Up, down, in and out. If you do not like the edges you are getting, try and find a different one. If you are missing away, try and work the lower edge. If you are missing in, try and work the upper edge. There are always "corners", you just have to find them.

2. Your catcher has a tremendous amount to do with what is and is not called a strike. You need to teach your catcher to build a rapport with umpires. They can't be confrontational. Umpires will absolutely tell the catcher where the ball is missing. Also, how they setup is a huge factor. If they are placing their glove out and not moving and catching the ball under their chin, or even worse, pulling the ball back in, they may be costing you strikes.

At the highest level of play, the umpires are usually pretty good. They will be more than happy to tell you where you are missing or why they are not giving you the edge. From my experience, if you have coaches and parent who are "beggers" for every pitch, you will see top umpires tighten up a bit. I have always found a nice polite conversation between innings goes a lot further than the "GREAT PITCH", screams from the dugout.

 

[JAD]

A walk does not help your team, so you need to figure out the umpires strike zone. Move the ball up/down to see if you can keep the ball off the fat part of the bat. You can also adjust the target/release point on your left/right pitches to tighten them up. For example - if the umpire is not giving you the outside corner on the curve ball, try throwing a "backdoor" curve instead.

 

[splinterpicker]

I appreciate the responses. Just trying to get out of tunnel vision mode. Its frustrating to walk batters for sure, but still gotta keep the ball in the yard also. Going to try more change of speed approach and a little catcher adjustment and see how it goes. I think the batters are getting too big of an advantage sometimes. I mean with $300 bats and umpires over eager to call illegal pitches, a good strike zone is about all that is left.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

We just got back from Murfreesboro TN and I could swear the umps were told to force a batters expo by shutting down the strike zone to the size of a Cantaloupe. To me in these cases, like Hal states, it's all about the change of speed. That's all ya got. At 18U-gold even a curve ball that satisfies this small zone will get hit hard.

 

[Doug Romrell]

I've observed that a game with a lot of walks isn't necessarily due to poor pitching. It is entirely possible that the pitchers are working the official strike zone quite well. It is entirely possible that the umpire has made the game a game of excessive walks due to his/her reduced strike zone. Such games are boring and can damage what you are trying to instill in both your pitchers and your batters.

 

[starsnuffer]

The umpire should have an equally small zone for both pitchers. As a coach, your strategy here is to have patience at the plate, recognize the hitters strike zone based on count, and to simply outhit the opposing team.

As a pitcher, you aggressively explore all edges of the zone early in the game to know what you can get away with for strikes. If the zone isn't big enough for pitches that appear as strikes but break out of the zone to work, then you have to go with pitches that appear as balls but break in the umpires zone. If the pitcher lacks enough movement for this, stick with changing speeds and pounding a single location based on the hitter that would achieve the easiest playable out.

-W