Top Tweets for #MoveOnToTheNext

Pitchers: You’ve chosen to play the most mentally demanding position on the field. Not only do you have to deal with your own mistakes, failures and errors (and be able to move on within seconds), you have to manage your emotions after your teammates errors, umpires missed calls, the weather, poor pitching mound conditions and even sometimes pitching to a catcher who is struggling receiving the ball. It’s all part of the gig. You’ll never be able to get away from these things. Your weakness is complaining and blaming these things for your performance while your strength can be how you handle all of it with grace allowing you to be present in the moment and competitive with each pitch. No one is saying this is easy but understanding what comes with it will help you to better evaluate and prepare for your next opportunity.

Pitching 101 When we lose feel for our fastball command, throw a different pitch. One of the most common mistakes young pitchers (and coaches who call pitches) make is when we are struggling to throw strikes with our FB, we keep throwing it “hoping” it will come back or thinking “if I can’t throw my FB for a strike, I won’t with my other pitches either.” When we go to our other pitches, it does two things for us. First, it takes my focus away from the negative feelings surrounding my FB in that moment and gives us something else to focus on and second, by throwing another pitch type (maybe even a few in a row) it will more often than not reset our release point with our fastball. Personally, I had a five ball rule with my FB. If I walked a batter with four straight fastballs and the first one to the next guy was a ball too, that was it. I was going to something else. For me it was a slider or a cutter but everyone is different. Establish your own go to/reset pitch for those moments your fastball decides to take a break! Throw a couple/few and then go back to the fastball.