Life Lessons
Life Lesson #59: Pitching to Win with Your Fastball
Use the heater to establish all other pitches
The philosophies and ideas included in this Life Lesson were pulled from a great presentation made by Jerry Weinstein (a minor league manager in the Colorado Rockies system and lifelong baseball coach). At the 2009 ABCA Convention, Coach Weinstein spoke at length on the topic of pitching to win with the fastball. And while he was talking about professional athletes competing over a long 162-game season, his speech was packed with great information and sold principles that can be applied to any level of baseball.
In a nutshell, Jerry talked about two key fundamentals to pitching with the fastball:
- Pitch Inside – To be effective at any level, a pitcher must pitch inside and be comfortable doing so.
- Pitch To Contact – Work hard to throw quality pitches and get hitters to put the ball in play.
Coach Weinstein had data and numbers to support all of the points presented. It’s interesting to look at baseball from a non-emotional, heavy statistical viewpoint. From that top-level perspective, these two keys become the most important components of a successful pitching staff. And it’s not something that’s accomplished or achieved in a single day or by a single pitcher. Instead, these are rules that an entire staff can work to follow over a full season. Pitch inside and pitch to contact.
There were loads of other points that I noted during the course of Weinstein’s time on stage. Following are several of Coach Weinstein’s keys to pitching to win with the fastball:
- Pitch To Contact – Coach Weinstein’s catchphrase for pitching to contact was: On or Out in Three Pitches. This means pitchers should set a goal of getting a batter out in three pitches or less. This may result in an out, error or even… a hit (gasp!!). But to keep pitch counts low and avoid free passes (walks), a pitcher should be encouraged to attack the strike zone and get a better out in three pitches.
- Down before In or Out – Pitchers must learn, or show, the ability to consistently throw the fastball down before working to hit spots “in” and/or “out.”
- Box Fastball – Following this line of thinking, Jerry discussed the importance of starting batters with a Box Fastball. A box fastball was a fastball down, with movement, thrown to the middle of the plate. In this case, the movement is accomplished by throwing the 2-seam fastball.
- ½ Box Fastball – After showing the ability to consistently throw the Box Fastball, focus moves to Half-Box Fastballs and only then does a pitcher pitch to the corner of the plate.
- Pitch Inside – Jerry’s best stat line to support the idea of pitching inside was this: In the major leagues, those pitchers that effectively pitch inside for the greatest percentage of strikes (meaning when they go inside, they throw a strike) consistently have the lowest ERA’s.
- Create Discomfort – A pitcher must be able to create discomfort in an opposing batter by forcing them to move their feet.
- Quality Misses – When throwing inside… miss inside. When throwing outside… miss down.
- Sequences – Throw a second fastball off an initial fastball as a combination.
- Tilt – Up-and-in location followed by down-and-away.
- Double Up – There are many ways to double up, here are a couple of Jerry’s and also my own double-up-sequences (all orders could be reversed)
*1st Fastball – 4-seam fastball / 2nd Fastball – 2-seam (any location)
*1st Fastball – Away for a strike / 2nd Fastball - Off-the-plate away
*1st Fastball – Inside for a strike (knees) / 2nd Fastball – Inside for a ball (“chase fastball” at the chest/letters)
- Two-Strike Approach – With two-strikes, pitchcers are to work the fastball hard and high and then “expand away and play away.”
- T.E.M.P.O. – Time Efficiency Makes Pitcher Offensive. The Rockies encourage their pitchers to work quickly to get the opposition out of rhythm. In other Life Lessons, I’ve referred to this as “dictating pace,” and a pitcher’s goal should be to control this. While working quickly between pitches is encouraged, it’s important to note that this does not apply to a rushed delivery or moving quickly through the mechanics of the pitching motion itself.
- One Run to Win – Pitchers work hard to instill confidence in their teammates that one run is all it will take to win the ballgame. When hitters are not pressing, they will undoubtedly score 4 runs or more because they know “they don’t have to.” This is a mental philosophy that the Rockies want their pitchers to pass along to their teammates. In theory this is great… for youth baseball games, this is often times impossible ;-)
- Shared Air Space - Colorado Rockies pitchers must have a second pitch that shares the same ball flight as their fastball for at least the first 20-feet of travel to home plate. This means that opposing batters should not be able to recognize a different trajectory until at least a third of the way to home plate. The most common pitch that accomplishes this is the change-up, and explains why a change-up can be such a difficult pitch to hit.
- Flat Ground Partner Catch – I really liked this drill for working on the subconscious comfort level of pitchers getting used to throwing inside. As part of athletes warming up and playing catch, instruct the receiver to turn sideways as if in a batting stance (glove shoulder should point towards thrower). The receiving athlete should hold his glove out directly in front of his chest, representing the inside fastball spot for the thrower. After receiving the throw, the athletes are to reverse roles and the receiver will now throw to his partner’s inside fastball spot.
In addition to some great fastball rules, Coach Weinstein shared information gathered from over 40 years of coaching baseball at the highest levels. I literally couldn’t write fast enough to capture all of the knowledge, and left with two full pages of scribbled notes. Truly goes to show that you can never stop learning about this wonderful game.
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