The link to the article on the last USA v. Heat game... because I love torturing myself and find Hughes' comments interesting... looks like I should have gone with the fastball.
http://web.theabl.com.au/news/article.jsp?ymd=20101109&content_id=16039306&vkey=news_t4068&fext=.jsp&sid=t4068
To me his comments are thought provoking and really get into pitch selection, pitch patterns, good in-game awareness and making adjustments...
Here is a scenario, I am interested in your thought process:
Good hitter comes up. You fall behind in the count. He is ahead of a 2-0 pitch, and hits it hard but foul down the left field line. What do you come back with?
My thought process was this: Throw something slower to try to get him out front.
His was: He is probably going to come back with something soft to try to get me out front... So should you try to come back soft and execute the pitch better, or know he will be looking for that and try to catch them off guard with something harder?
Let me know what you think.
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While my double digit career ERA in single digit innings doesn't establish myself any credibility, I think the issue here is scope. You preface your question of which pitch to throw based on information from the previous 3 pitches, whereas he guessed which pitch you were going to throw based on the way you threw to previous hitters.
ReplyDeleteYou can't limit the scope of information you take into consideration to just a couple previous pitches, but you have to factor in every pitch you threw that night. If you think you established yourself as someone who is going to be aggressive with the fastball, then it should have been fine to come back with the change. But, if you were more relying on your off speed stuff throughout the night, you should have second guessed the change a bit more then you did. Also, did you consider the previous pitches you threw in 2-0 and 3-1 counts? If you were sitting off speed in those counts, that might another interesting thing to take into consideration.
In the end, nobody knows better than you, because you can best guess the way the hitters were approaching you that night. But, my point is in picking a pitch to throw, you can't just pick a pitch based on your last few pitches, rather all of the pitches you threw that night.
Love you
Well put, anonymous... thanks for the ideas. I hadn't fallen behind in the count that night so it was a completely new situation, but he was clearly thinking a few steps ahead of me. Your thoughts bring up another interesting idea... If you have had success doing a certain thing, when do you change. Obviously the best players change it before the other players adjust. Thanks again for the comments!
ReplyDeleteHey Ethan,
ReplyDeleteI would just blow him away with my lighting speedy fastball, that he would mistake for a changeup :-)
Anyways, I would blame Kleine for the bad pitch selexion
But what do I know?
Take care man