What's up, softball players, I'm Coach Dan Blewett in today's video
let's talk about your pre-pitch process to have the best mindset
for pitching.
All right.
So in today's video, we're going to go over
sort of like a four step pre pitch process that I use
as a pitcher that I learned from goes the MLB pitcher.
I heard him talk about this on TV and I thought it was awesome
and I adopted it myself.
That's how all this wisdom gets passed around.
Do you hear from someone or someone teaches it to you?
So I want to share some of this today and how I sort of have also adapted it
for myself and for you here as softball pitchers.
So basically what we're going to do is talk about the different sort of zones
on the field where you'll be
and what you're going to think about in each of those zones.
So, number one, when you're off of the circle,
so when you're outside the circle, that means between pitches.
So say you got a fly out to center field.
They caught the ball.
You're walking around, they're throwing it around your infielders.
Right.
And then you get it back and you catch it and now you're off.
They're outside the circle.
And the hitters just aren't all, you know, walk over and get over ready for her.
Turn a bat
when you're in the zone,
when you're outside the circle, you're going to think about the big game things.
What's the score?
Who's coming up to bat?
How many outs are there?
What part of the fielder you're going to have to cover on a bunt?
What are you going to have to back up
if the ball's hit to the outfield, to the right center gap, to the left center gap,
all those different tasks that you have as a pitcher,
this is the time to think about those when you're outside the circle
and you're waiting for the hitter to walk up into the box.
This is the all the big game stuff.
All right.
Next, when you walk into the circle,
this is when the hitters starting to get maybe close to the box
or maybe they're not in the batter's box yet.
And this can vary slightly
depending on your process and really how fast the game is moving.
But next is when you just walk inside the circle
but you're not on the rubber yet.
This is when you're really going to think about the game situation.
So who's coming up? How many outs are there?
I know we discussed this before, but who's up?
How many outs are there?
What has this hitter done so far?
What do you know about this hitter?
Is it a big power hitter?
Are they a slap or have they bunted twice?
Are they tiny like they have no power?
Do they have the worst swing in the world?
Do they have two left feet? They're going to trip out of the box.
What does the hitter look like
and how are you starting to think about your approach to this at bat?
So that's what you're going to start
to think about, is trying to assess the situation
because you've already thought about the big stuff.
You know, where you're going to back up,
you know where you're going to have to field a fielder, bunt.
You know what you're going to have to do if you get a comebacker
all that stuff you already thought about in Zone One.
Now that you're in Zone two,
you're starting to think about the situation and the hitter.
You also might remind yourself what you're
confident of, what you're not so confident in today.
You know which pitches have been working, which pitchers have not been working.
So if you don't really like your drop order, it's not really biting.
They're hitting it pretty hard
or your rice ball is excellent today and you're really confident in that.
You know, this is the time to think about all that stuff as it's going to interact
with the hitter in this at bat next is when you approach the rubber.
So either you walk up
and you're like straddling the rubber or you're standing behind it
or you're actually standing on it getting your sign.
So when you get your sign, this is the time to think through.
What are you actually going to look for?
What do you want to throw?
Now I realize that most coaches are calling pitches,
which I think is a travesty,
but you should still think through it yourself, even if that's the case.
Do you want to throw drop all?
Are you looking for your catcher to change the first pitch?
You know what's what's happening right now?
So this is going to be your pre pitch process between pitches as well
because you're not going to walk back off the mound so much between pitches.
You're basically just going to sort of back up,
you know, again, reassess the situation,
get back on the rubber, what's my next pitch?
What are the hitter do last time?
So if it's the two to count coming up, did the hitter foul the last pitch off?
Did they pull it foul?
Do they hit a long foul homerun?
Did they swing and miss and look ugly?
You know, does they do they have a really slow bat?
Did you figure out they really can't hit a rise ball or a drop ball?
What what have you learned so far on the backs?
This is not just first pitch of the bat stuff.
This is also between every pitch of the bat.
So when you're on the rubber and you're ready to get the sign from the catcher
and then that little bit of like downtime
between when the hitters maybe taking their last practice
when you're ready, but they're not in there yet.
When you're anticipating that sign, that's when you're really going to focus on
how are we attacking the hitter?
What have we learned so far,
and what is our game plan for the pitch calling and the execution going forward?
And so last zone for this is when you're on the rubber
and you're ready to make your pitch.
And so now because we've done all this other work, right, we've we've assessed
the game situation, we know the AL, we know the score, we know the inning,
we know what we're going to do with a comebacker
or a bunch to the left side, one to the right side, all that stuff.
And we've assessed what the hitter can and can't do,
what you personally can and can't do your confidence over different pitches.
What's happened when you throw thrown
different pitches to different locations so far in the bat?
You've done all this work mentally, right?
So now that you step on the rubber and you've got your sign, you know,
you're throwing a drop curve on the outer third of the plate.
Now it's time to think one thought and that is execute this pitch.
You don't think about outcomes,
you don't think about any of the other stuff
that we thought that we talked about because we already covered it.
That's why we go through this process to get all that stuff settled.
We've checked it off of our big checklist, so now our mind is clear.
We know where we're going on a bunt.
We know what we're doing with the COMEBACKER.
We know what this hitter can and can't hit.
Well, now we've chosen Drop Curve, our third.
And so our only thing that we're thinking left now is not the next pitch,
not the previous pitch.
It's just execute this pitch, make this pitch to the best of my ability.
And when you're clear and you're focused like that, that your only job
is to execute this pitch,
the pitch that I've chosen and the location that we've chosen.
Then pitching gets a lot easier when you still have all this other clutter
floating around your head
because you haven't gone through your mental process and your checklist.
Then it makes executing this pitch harder because you're still worried
about things, you're worried about outcomes,
you're worried about things that you might have to do
if all these different scenarios might come to fruition.
So once you've done all the work in zone four, zone three, zone two,
and now you're on the on the rubber zone one, and you're ready to make your pitch,
all you have to do is stare down that mitt and execute and compete.
And that's, in a sense how you distill all the mental
checklist, all the processes into me finally making my best pitch,
and then just repeat this every pitch for the entire game.
And that's how you can piece together really great starts over time.
So hopefully this video was helpful.
Obviously the mental side of softball is really important.
I was a pitcher,
so I know how many butterflies fly through your head in your stomach.
Sometimes you have the cymbal banging monkey in your head.
You know,
you get sped up, you get nervous, and you have a lot of commotion of things
to think about and nerves and doubts and fears.
And it's hard to calm them all down.
But this process is important in helping you bring everything down
to one tiny thing to focus on, which is executing
the pitch that you've chosen to the best of your ability.
All right.
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And I'll see you here in the next video.