How Can The Struggling High School Pitcher Improve? (Part 1)
- It's You Versus You. It's On You. Stop making excuses.
If it was easy everyone would do it. It's not the umpire's fault, not your coach or catcher's pitch selection, not the mound, and not your defense.
It's simply you versus you out there. Win the battle within.
2. On Or Out in Three or Less. By pitch three, something should have happened.
Hunt contact. Work fast. Get the defense involved!
3. Love To Pitch!
I can't stress this one enough. Make this a goal while you're out there. Keep the joy no matter what happens. Pitching is probably your favourite thing in the whole world, right? Everything you do all week long is to get to go out there and compete to the best of your ability. Love it!
4. Command The Fastball.
Stop worrying about throwing two damn breaking balls and if you should throw a splitter or a change-up. If your walk rate is above 3 per 9 innings, throw everything else out the window and learn how to command your fastball first. If you can't command the fastball down and away at will, work on that above all else until you can. Grow up.
5. Stop Wasting Pitches With Two Strikes.
Your two strike pitches should be "framable and believable." Both the hitter and the umpire should have to make a decision. Trust your stuff and try to get weak contact with two strikes, right away. The strikeouts will happen organically if you are consistently attacking the zone and you have good stuff.
I'll be back in a couple days or so, with part two of this series!