The importance of knowing your pitcher

When it comes to winning, it’s not just about the score. According to Marissa Young, there are four specific controllables that good pitchers can manage to increase your team’s success rate. Knowing how well your pitchers handle each of these can help you improve their performance on the mound.

#1: Starting slow or tiring quickly
Do you have pitchers who take a while to warm up? Knowing this information allows you to alter your players’ training and warmup routine to get peak performance from them. Sometimes slow starters aren’t throwing enough pitches, their pitch quality is poor or they’re not practicing a sufficient number of at-bats before the game. Make sure they develop a good pregame routine that’s going to help them be better prepared come game time.

For pitchers who tire quickly, you may want to get them throwing more pitches during the week leading up to a game or improve their conditioning so they’re able to last through seven innings.

#2: Lead-off outs
Along with box scores, you should be looking at lead-off outs. How do your hurlers perform when runners are in scoring position? When there’s a runner at second base, does your pitcher buckle down and get the next out or does she give up the only triple of the game? Having a good sense of how your individual pitchers respond in various scenarios can help you know when to make a pitching change and when to let your pitcher battle through.

#3: Performance with two outs
Some pitchers get the first two outs quickly, but then they mentally check out and give up hits and runs when all they need to do is get one more out. You can work with your pitchers to overcome these tendencies if you’re aware of when they occur.

#4: Performance with two strikes
Pitchers may have a propensity for giving up more hits or runs with two strikes. Having an idea of how many hits your team gives up in this scenario allows you to work to prevent this situation.