Let’s start today’s post with this simple fact: pitching is hard. In fact, it’s not just hard, it’s incredibly hard.

And I’m not talking about the physical toll only, either, that results from having to bring great energy to every single play of every game they’re pitching. There’s also the mental toll of what happens when things don’t go right, as often happens – even at the highest levels of the game as we’re seeing on TV as they say.

All of that is compounded by the type of personality that says yes, give me the ball, give me the responsibility for initiating every play, and have every single person on the field, in the dugout, in the stands, and in the bad parent section of the outfield watch me intensely every time I step onto the pitcher’s plate o throw a pitch. What kind of normal human being volunteers for that type of pressure?

So with all that said, it’s no surprise that pitchers often accept not only their rightful share of the blame when things go wrong; they often take on all of it, whether that’s warranted or not. And most of the time it’s not.

So for all you pitchers, coaches, and pitcher parents who are living and dying on every pitch and every play, I’ve put together this little guide for which responsibilities actually lie with the pitcher and which do not. If you have a pitcher who is suffering through a crisis of confidence because she isn’t perfect all the time, show this list to her and let her know hey – it’s not all on you.

#1 – The Plague of Dropped Third Strikes (D3Ks)

We see this one a lot. The pitcher is pitching effectively, getting hitters to swing and miss on borderline strikes or even balls that look like strikes, but then – the catcher drops the pitch or even misses it completely. Once or twice in a game you can understand that – things happen, even to good catchers.

But when it becomes a pattern, like, say, happening two or three times in an inning, that becomes a problem. If the affected hitters reach base you not only lose an out you should have had; you have a potential run on base that should never have had the chance to score.

When pitchers – especially younger ones – see this, their tendency is to think they have to do something to fix it and cut down on the D3Ks. The usual solution is to try to throw pitches that are easier for the catcher to catch.

The problem with that is those pitches are also easier to hit. Unless hitters are swinging at pitches way over their heads, or way off the plate to the point the catcher can’t reach them without ordinary or even good effort, those D3Ks are not the pitcher’s problem to solve.

She’s doing her job. The problem needs to be solved by the catcher, her coaches (train her up, even if you have to stay after practice to do it), her parents (work with her on non-practice/game days and/or get her catching lessons), or even the catcher herself asking her teammates or friends to give her extra practice.

If I’m advising the pitcher, I’m telling her to keep doing what she’s doing, and maybe even try to get the pitch out a little more so she’s developing herself to compete against better hitters. Maybe if enough runners reach base someone will take one of the actions above and try to fix it – at which point everyone (including the catcher herself) benefits.

#2 – Errors in the Field

Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not the pitcher’s job to strike out every hitter. Sure, strike outs are nice, and they’re definitely helpful because they take some variables out of the play. They also show well for bragging rights.

But they are not a pitcher’s main job. Instead, the pitcher’s main job is to get outs any way she can. If that means inducing hitters to continually hit weak ground balls and easy pop-ups instead of striking them out, so be it.

I’ve known and coached a lot of successful pitchers who didn’t rack up a huge number of Ks, yet somehow they won a lot of ballgames because they made it easy for the 7 fielders behind them to do their jobs. There’s nothing like a 5-pitching inning on a hot and humid day to keep your team fresh and ready to keep playing. (I’m looking at you, Katie Wirtz.)

But for that strategy to be successful, the fielders do have to do their jobs – catch the ball, throw the ball, get the easy out.

If they’re not doing that pitchers can be tempted to try to take on too much and force strikeouts. That’s usually when they start over-throwing the ball instead of pitching with solid mechanics, causing them to get wild and start tossing the ball all over the place.

Errors in the field aren’t the pitcher’s responsibility unless she’s making them herself. Instead it’s again up to the field players, their parents, and the coaches to help them get better so they cut down on the errors to give their team a better chance of winning.

#3 – A High ERA

Ok, this one is conditional, as I will get to in a minute. But these days stats are pretty easy to obtain thanks to apps such as GameChanger, so it’s tempting for a pitcher to go in, look at her stats, and compare herself to other pitchers on the team, or on other teams. Not to mention for other pitchers to repeat what they heard their parents say about them.

Yet the viability of most stats is directly dependent on the quality of the person scoring the game. God bless anyone willing to keep the book, but there’s a huge difference between someone who knows the ins and outs (no pun intended) of scoring a game and someone who is just doing their best to mark something down out of the goodness of their hearts.

ERA is a stat that is dependent on whether a runner reached base as the result of a clean hit or an error. A scorekeeper who marks every ball that’s put in play as a hit, even if there was an obvious error, is going to cause ERAs to go sky high.

Now, I will say a lot of scorekeepers will mark the most obvious errors, such as Little Suzy (poor Suzy, always getting picked on) dropping a pop-up that’s hit right to her or fumbling a weak ground ball or fielding it cleanly and then throwing it into the parking lot. But there are a lot more possibilities for errors.

The definition of an error is basically the failure to successfully get the out on a play that required ordinary effort. So if an outfielder runs up to a fly ball, stops, and lets the ball hit the ground, that’s an error even though she didn’t touch it. If a shortstop stands like a statue as a medium ground ball goes by her two feet to her left, that’s an error.

Then there are the cases where scorekeepers cook the books a little. They mark an error a hit in one case and not in another not because they don’t know better but because they’re actively trying to help one pitcher look better than another.

I don’t think that happens often, but it definitely does happen.

No matter the reason, if a pitcher has a high ERA because she’s throwing meatballs all day to hitters that’s on her. If it’s because errors are being marked as hits for whatever reason, it’s not.

#4 – A Low Strike/High Walk Percentage

Again, this one is conditional. If a pitcher is throwing the ball into the dirt, wide of the batter’s box, over the backstop, etc., that’s on her and she needs to own it.

But there are other cases where that’s not true. An umpire with an inconsistent strike zone can make it difficult for a pitcher to know where to throw the ball to get a strike.

Same with an umpire with an inappropriately small strike zone for the age group. As we mentioned earlier, pitching is already difficult enough without making the strike zone the size of a shoebox.

Now, that said, if that’s the case the pitcher does have a responsibility to adjust to wherever the umpire is calling strikes. But that can be difficult for pitchers with only a year or two’s worth of experience.

And if they are successful in finding that zone, don’t be surprised if they start getting pummeled. Hitters aren’t stupid, and their job gets a whole lot easier if they only really have to worry about swinging at one location – even if it’s their weakest location.

#5 – Being Overmatched

This can happen too, especially at the younger ages.

Sometimes the coach figures the best chance of winning is to put his/her Ace up against a really strong team, only to realize about 10 minutes in that the Ace isn’t up to the task yet. Sometimes the coach chooses to enter a tournament based on dates and location rather than level of competition and ends up learning the hard way that a little more research can sometimes save a lot of heartache.

Sometimes the coach sees improvement in his/her team and consciously decides to test them against a higher level of competition, only to discover they’re not ready yet. And sometimes the coach takes the old axiom about iron forging iron a little too seriously and I guess figures a weekend of good old fashioned buttkicking is just what the team needs to get better.

Whatever the reason, when a pitcher finds herself in that situation all she can do is do the best she can, learn what she can from it, and keep working with a goal of making a better showing the next time she sees a team or group of teams like that.

The Realities

There are times when pitchers need to step up and take responsibility for their shortcomings in a game. They have to control their controllables and do everything they can to get themselves ready each and every time they step into the circle.

But there are also a whole lot of other factors they can’t control, and if they try to take responsibility for those too they’re going to end up hating the position – and we don’t want to see that.

Helping your favorite pitcher(s) understand the differences between the two is a great way to help avoid unwarranted unhappiness and keep them on a path of learning, and growth. Hopefully this little guide will help.

Lead photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com