You hear it all the time from coaches, parents, and others sitting safely on the sidelines at fastpitch softball games: Just throw strikes! As if that idea hadn’t occurred to the poor pitcher while she’s sweating out a delightful inning of walks and hit by pitches.

Ah, if only it were that easy. I mean, it doesn’t look that difficult from the outside.

You step or jump or ninja leap your way forward, swing your arm over your head, bring it down, and let go of the ball. What could be more basic than that?

Plenty, to be honest. Because pitching in fastpitch is like a fine Swiss watch.

On the surface, you see the hands going around a disk. But underneath, there’s a complex set of gears creating individual movements that all have to be perfectly in synch to keep the correct time.

Let one little piece of a gear wear down, or get knocked askew, or take on a spec of dirt that slows it down by a microsecond, and suddenly the whole operation is no longer functioning properly.

Think I’m exaggerating? Take a good look at any video or sensor-based analysis of the pitching motion.

You have to be concerned about how the legs work in relation to the arms at launch. You have to look at where the body goes when it drives out – is it relatively straight or going off line?

When the arms go back on a backswing or forward on the first phase of the pitch are they working together and moving toward the plate in an efficient manner or are the wandering all over the place, creating timing and balance issues?

What’s happening with the muscles underneath? Are they loose and flexible the way they need to be in order to move quickly, or are they stiff and locked out?

What’s happening in the shoulder as the arm goes over the top? How is the upper arm positioned relative to the shoulder and the lower arm?

Where is the upper arm positioned when the front foot lands? What is the hand doing at this point?

As the pitcher goes into delivery are her shoulders stable and locked into position or are they swinging around like one of those carnival rides? Does she have good, upright posture, or is she collapsing like a cheap folding chair?

There’s more to consider but you get the idea. Lots of moving parts that all have to work properly, and in synch, in order to “just throw strikes.”

Now add in the idea that this sport is called FASTpitch. So it’s not enough to get the movements correct.

You have to do it while putting every ounce of energy you have into every pitch. All in the space of a couple of seconds start to finish, with a lot of the critical movements occurring in a matter of milliseconds before the pitcher has to move on to the next one.

Anything in that process gets slightly off and suddenly the ball is heading into the dirt, or into the backstop, or into the side of the hitter. And when that happens, the pitcher has to know how to make a micro-adjustment here or there to get everything back on track in an effort to make sure it doesn’t happen again on the next pitch.

What usually happens, especially with younger or beginning pitchers, is that they over-correct instead of understanding they should just relax, trust their training, and allow the gears to get back in line. That’s why one pitch goes into the dirt and the next one hits the field number sign at the top of the backstop.

When you see that issue occurring, the worst thing you can yell is “just throw strikes.” That’s what she’s trying to do.

But a gear has slipped and she’s probably not sure which one or how to fix it. Telling her to “just throw strikes” will only encourage her to try to force the ball over the plate, abandoning all mechanics.

That would be like trying to fix your watch by hitting it with a hammer. You might get lucky, and get it running again, but the odds are you’re just going to ruin the watch.

A better approach is to call time if you can and go out and talk to her. Remind her to trust the work she’s put in and let her body do what it does best, focusing on the process instead of the outcome.

In other words, let her get all her gears back in order. And if that still doesn’t work, tell her it’s just not her day and you’re going to give someone else a try now, and you’ll come back to her another game.

If you’re a non-coaching parent and can’t go out for that circle visit, just be encouraging and supportive. I know it’s difficult to watch your daughter struggle – I’ve been there – but she’ll be able to handle the adversity a lot better if she knows you’ve got her back instead of thinking you are judging or criticizing her in the moment.

If she’s not able to correct things on her own, the time for those corrections is in her next practice session, not under pressure in the middle of a game. Trying to do it in-game will likely only make it worse.

Yes, pitchers like Tegan Kavan, Nijaree Canady, Sam Landry, Emma Lemley, and so many others you see on TV or at live games often make fastpitch pitching look easy.. But it’s anything but – even for them.

Understanding just how complex the individual movements are, and how intricate the timing of each movement is in relationship to all the others, should help you cut your pitcher(s) a little slack when things aren’t going quite the way you or she wants. It ain’t easy.

But like that fine Swiss watch, it’s a thing of beauty when you get it all working the way it should.