UCLA beats OU...a lesson in "picking the pitcher"...or "picking the coach".

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sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,132
113
Dallas, Texas
On Monday night, UCLA scored 16 runs against Oklahoma. That seems like an awful lot of runs, doesn't it? More than anyone would think?

On Tuesday night, UCLA hit 4 homers off G. Juarez. They hit the homer on the same pitch, FOUR TIMES. On the last homer, Tautalafua adjusted her position in the box in the middle of the pitch. On an 0-1 count, she moved away from the plate, so that she could not touch a pitch on the outside part of the plate.

Somehow, she suddenly decided that protecting the outside of the plate when behind in the count was a bad idea.

Luck? Skill? Divine intervention? Did the softball gods put in a call on the banana phone?

Nope...someone on the UCLA staff (and I'm looking at you, Ms. Fernandez) found a way to pick the pitcher or pick the signals coming in from the bench.

Go back through the game, and you'll see the UCLA batters teeing off on that pitch over and over again. UCLA batters made contact almost every time Juarez threw the pitch, like they knew the location of the pitch.
 
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Chris Delorit

Member
Apr 24, 2016
343
28
Green Bay, WI
Well, because they did.

Knowing the location of a horizontal movement pitch that stays on plane isn't really that difficult when it's her bread and butter pitch 80% of the time. She missed as many as she made. Those games included 6 or 7 .320+ season hitters in the UCLA lineup. That's a challenge for any staff.

UCLA's hitting was just better than Oklahoma's pitching when the lights were shining the brightest. Rachel Garcia was also arguably not at her sharpest Tuesday night.

As far as any pitch ID, Lisa Fernandez certainly had the best seat in the house to do so with a left-handed pitcher. She could have been relaying data, but I just don't think UCLA's batting line-up needed it against OK's #1.

With a number system, there's not going to be much interpretation from coaches.

Chris
 
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May 20, 2016
433
63
Not sure they were picking pitches. Think a lot of it has to do with scouting and facing them 3 times in a week. UCLA has a pretty good staff, and i'd assume they watched hours upon hours of tape to get tendencies. Think it is more preparation than picking.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Are you suggesting cheating?
Picking pitches/signs isn't cheating, especially at that level. It has gone on for as long as softball/baseball has been played. The teams expect the other team to try and do it and it is their (pitchers,coaches,etc) job to make sure it doesn't happen. Not sure it happened in this case though.
 
Last edited:
Nov 8, 2018
774
63
On Monday night, UCLA scored 16 runs against Oklahoma. That seems like an awful lot of runs, doesn't it? More than anyone would think?

On Tuesday night, UCLA hit 4 homers off G. Juarez. They hit the homer on the same pitch, FOUR TIMES. On the last homer, Tautalafua adjusted her position in the box in the middle of the pitch. On an 0-1 count, she moved away from the plate, so that she could not touch a pitch on the outside part of the plate.

Somehow, she suddenly decided that protecting the outside of the plate when behind in the count was a bad idea.

Luck? Skill? Divine intervention? Did the softball gods put in a call on the banana phone?

Nope...someone on the UCLA staff (and I'm looking at you, Ms. Fernandez) found a way to pick the pitcher or pick the signals coming in from the bench.

Go back through the game, and you'll see the UCLA batters teeing off on that pitch over and over again. UCLA batters made contact almost every time Juarez threw the pitch, like they knew the location of the pitch.

She may have had a tell. Not good


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Oct 1, 2014
2,218
113
USA
Why she kept throwing that flat pitch to the same spot seemed a bit crazy. UCLA recognized it and OU paid for it.
 
Feb 2, 2015
11
3
Struck me as a pitcher missing her spots more than a pitch being picked or not. I think all of the homeruns last night were missed right down the middle belt high. Best hitters in the game are going to do some damage with that pitch.
 
Jun 6, 2018
305
43
Sluggers I thought that immediately on Monday night as UCLA just destroyed the Oklahoma pitching staff that seemed to dominate everyone else. When something looks to good to be true question yourself on what is the difference. Coaching instincts tell me they knew OU's signs and sorry but making an adjustment in the box with 2 strikes on you and knowing anything over the outer half you wont touch is the obvious giveaway. UCLA can hit but when you start putting up those home run numbers in 2 games against a staff that dominated everyone else, they dominated because they knew what pitch they had the best opportunity to kill and they did so whenever they saw it.
 
Mar 20, 2015
174
28
I was also thinking UCLA had some sort of edge when watching both games. Doesn't necessarily mean they were stealing signs though. Could be they were picking something the pitcher or the catcher were doing, or the pitch calls were too predictable.

Also interesting that UCLA kept calling rise balls in the last inning when only up by one run even when the first two batters hit deep fly balls and there were 2 outs. They quickly realized their mistake after the home run and called all drop balls to the next batter.
 

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