WHEN THE OTHER PITCHER DOMINATES

[radness]

Here's the follow up -- one I am all too familiar with. What do you do when YOUR pitcher is overmatched? She's throwing fine, but the other team hits everything that comes close to the zone, and is good enough to hit the gaps in your defense. She's your number one, better than the others on the team. So how do you handle when your best pitcher can't get a yellow ball past the batters?.

Give 'em free ride to 1st and back pick!
Just a fun thought... ZAP!

Think defense is important anyway but especially with average pitching a defense who stays on the attack can help keep control of the game in their favor.
With runners on and no action with the batter, there is still opportunity to get outs.
Active catcher helps get outs!
Smarter pitch calling and sometimes creative pitch calling can add a twist!

 

[BT3100]

Bunt?

 

[NBECoach]

I would not try to change swings. A pitcher usually has 1 pitch which they go to to get the out to so I'd rather have the batter change positions in the batters box depending upon what the "out pitch" has been and compete.

 

[whiporee]

Give 'em free ride to 1st and back pick!
Just a fun thought... ZAP!

Think defense is important anyway but especially with average pitching a defense who stays on the attack can help keep control of the game in their favor.
With runners on and no action with the batter, there is still opportunity to get outs.
Active catcher helps get outs!
Smarter pitch calling and sometimes creative pitch calling can add a twist!

Would you consider crashing the outfield to close the available gaps? Can you shift like they've been doing in baseball?

 

[quincy]

In baseball a pitcher stuck out 9 of our 10 batters, C Interference was the one we got on base. We had a lead and won in extra innings. We wore them out and they needed they needed to leave the game.

I am not a big bunter. If WE lose we are going to lose swinging.

We have batted againt some pitchers that seem anomalies, you can not practice for them.

 

[BRsoftballDad]

A little background. The attached videos are a game that we played against the TN MOJO. Their pitcher is the 2025 class 6th ranked pitcher in the country, according to Extra Innings. At 13, she throws a legit 62 mph. This was confirmed at LSU's pitching camp by the head coach Beth Torina who was holding the radar gun herself. Anyways, we found ourselves in the 3rd place game at the State Tournament. Despite of what they knew or heard about this pitcher, they jumped on her early. After the game, I asked my DD what she was thinking when she stepped into the plate. She told me, "If I get a first pitch fastball, I am jumping on it." Now, we still ended up losing that game 5-2 but we did not get blanked and were never "dominated" despite the pitcher being a dominant pitcher. Anyways, here it is below.



Next, getting back to the subject at hand. I think slaps and bunts can be a great tool against dominating pitchers. Here is one of my DD's teammates slapping one into a tough gap despite a slap shift coverage.

 

[Laphoneman]

Ive told DD the pitchers objective is to get the batter to hit a bad pitch. The best dominating pitchers I’ve seen were getting our batters to swing at bad pitches. So from my experience the best way to approach a dominant pitcher is to be selective and not swing at anything out of the zone. The last tournament we played 14u pitcher 63 on pocket radar and our girls couldn’t lay off the riseball (High fastball) but it started low and ended at there eyes. If we could lay-off that pitch. It would have been a totally different game.

 

[Quasimodo]

WHAT DO YOU DO with your batters?

Strategy or Struggle or ?

GO SOFTBALL COACHES !

Go to small-ball and hope for the best

 

[Quasimodo]

A little background. The attached videos are a game that we played against the TN MOJO. Their pitcher is the 2025 class 6th ranked pitcher in the country, according to Extra Innings. At 13, she throws a legit 62 mph. This was confirmed at LSU's pitching camp by the head coach Beth Torina who was holding the radar gun herself. Anyways, we found ourselves in the 3rd place game at the State Tournament. Despite of what they knew or heard about this pitcher, they jumped on her early. After the game, I asked my DD what she was thinking when she stepped into the plate. She told me, "If I get a first pitch fastball, I am jumping on it." Now, we still ended up losing that game 5-2 but we did not get blanked and were never "dominated" despite the pitcher being a dominant pitcher. Anyways, here it is below.



Next, getting back to the subject at hand. I think slaps and bunts can be a great tool against dominating pitchers. Here is one of my DD's teammates slapping one into a tough gap despite a slap shift coverage.

I liked everything, the whole post!

 

[radness]

I am not a big bunter. If WE lose we are going to lose swinging.
We have batted againt some pitchers that seem anomalies, you can not practice for them.

( there are many coaching styles glad there are, it creates diversity in competition.)

Going to encourage developing
and utilizing more offensive tools especially against a dominating pitcher!
Knowing that there are extremely talented pitchers and not every team gets one.... if you get the opportunity to face them (and hopefully you will) being prepaired can bring confidence to the box.
*Encourage
Utilizing all skill sets and strategy available to keep you in the game!

Simply to say we'll go down swinging inables the pitcher.
Puts control to the other team.

Take back control by utilizing bunting, or shorten swings, small ball, perhaps take a different approach in the box. Like attacking first pitch. Even swing at all pitches instead of being selective.

To be a competitive team. Or goal of top in the nation you need to be able to defeat better pitching!
Also it is notable that sometimes batters are just off on any given day. When multiple batters are off in the same day is almost a recipe for disaster.
However when you have strategy to utilize you can take back some control offensively.
It doesnt make sense to struggle and do nothing,
*when there are ways to atleast try to keep the team in the game!

*Make the other teams defense work to get their outs.

Our college team had great pitching, but our college did not have the BIG allure of other top competitive colleges in calif.
Those colleges had bigger recruiting power and stacked the best pitchers.
We had to use everything we could to stay in the game, create pressure, not let their pitchers run the game.
At times we would start half turned ready to bunt, if it wasnt a strike we would let it go.
It gave us a better eye on the pitch. Helps with timing. Helped us get a couple balls instead of strikes to create a better hitters count.
Hope everyone gets the opportunity to face elite pitching!
It is a joy to see the control of excellence it brings to the game.
Without a doubt learning how to stay in the game against it can take you places like the College World Series!
GO BEACH !